


The Hours Between Dawns

by elisewrites



Series: Better Unrequited [4]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Crimes & Criminals, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:53:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisewrites/pseuds/elisewrites
Summary: “Need a favor,” Rio says a moment later, his eyes settling back on her as if to gauge her reaction. Beth suppresses the urge to make a retort or refuse altogether, knowing that despite the tentative cease-fire they’ve been maintaining for the past few weeks, he still has a short fuse when it comes to her, and she still has a long road ahead of her before she’s back in his good graces.“What kind of favor?” She prompts, her tone tepid as she eyes him warily.“Got a meetin’ up North tomorrow night. You comin’ with.”・・・Rio takes advantage of a business opportunity by bringing Beth along to pitch her product. When the meeting goes sideways and Beth gets hurt, the tension between them finally comes to a head.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Series: Better Unrequited [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764664
Comments: 72
Kudos: 443





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> note: takes place post season finale and pretty much ignores the hitman plot line entirely because i refuse to touch that shit with a ten foot pole.  
> title is an excerpt from “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde.

Although Dean might’ve convinced himself otherwise, the turn of events that led to Beth getting dolled up on a Thursday night for a celebratory dinner with him was more so propelled by the sparse state of their pantry rather than her desire to honor his work ethic.

It's not that she didn’t enjoy the ritualistic calm of getting gussied up and ready for a night on the town—one that didn't involve batting her eyelashes and presenting her cleavage for the man she robbed, shot, and then, once again, robbed—but the memory of the last one she shared with Dean is a far stretch from fond. (Not the parts he was present for, anyway, but that’s beside the point.)

At the very least, she’s thankful that she has a full closet of clothes to choose from. Shortly after she’d delivered Boomer to him, Rio refilled her home with all of her belongings, intact and conventionally arranged as if they had never even been missing. Honestly, it’d been the last thing she expected—he was incredibly keen on his teaching moments, after all—but he’d meant it when he said they were good now. He even went as far as to put it in writing, his familiar illegible scrawl marking a lone piece of paper she’d found on top of her ottoman the day she returned home and found it fully furnished again.

_We’re good_. 

_Be smart._

And for the sake of keeping the roof over her kids’ heads—the pillows beneath them, too—she has been. They’ve been printing on his payroll for three weeks now without a hitch in their operation, and it finally feels as though she’s landed with both feet planted on even terrain. She thinks that sometime after the second or third drop, Rio had even begun to regard her with something close to satisfaction rather than apathy or loathing, which is really a feat in and of itself. 

The extra hours she’s been putting in came back to bite her this evening after Beth had finished making her carpool rounds to various extracurricular activities. Upon finding hardly enough fresh ingredients in the fridge to make a single serving of scrambled eggs, she’d realized that their meals would be restricted to take-out until she could squeeze in a grocery run.

When Dean finally ambled into the foyer an hour later than he said he’d be working, she hadn’t even had the chance to inquire about his day or explain their dinner situation to him before he’d proclaimed with a dopey grin, “Call the sitter. _We_ are going out to celebrate.”

As it turns out, he’s marginally better at selling spas than haggling vehicles. He’d pridefully informed her that he’d sold his first one surpassing the $3,000 price mark (which, frankly, Beth thinks, is a little embarrassing, given how long he’s been working there), and Beth had felt as though she’d stepped five years into the past—to the time where her doting eyes would round into saucers and flash with pride for her hard-working husband. The trip down memory lane was begrudged and short-lived—a raising of eyebrows and a hum of affirmation were all she’d managed to muster—nonetheless, she’d called their sitter up (a polite young woman that they’d hired after Annie’s was put on probation) and began sifting through her closet for a suitable piece of formalwear. 

She’d sold a generous portion of her wardrobe back when Judith was staying with them—most of her pieces weren’t of exuberant quality anyway, so the lesser-worn dresses in the back of her closet had been the first to go—and it wouldn’t’ve been an issue for this occasion if Dean hadn’t caught sight of her wearing the figure-hugging polka-dot number she’d chosen as a not-so-subtle negotiation tactic. As it was, though, she was down one more dress that she couldn’t bear to wear around Dean because of the memories that tied it to Rio.

When she’d caught sight of the burgundy dress hanging in the farthest corner of her closet, she’d had half a mind to get rid of it right then and there. She knew there was no way she’d be able to put it back on without thinking of him, but there was an infuriating part of her that avidly rejected the notion of discarding it. She’d barely been able to wash her damn sheets without breaking down after he’d been in them, and she wasn’t particularly in the mood for a repeat of that experience.

It did, however, narrow down her options enough for her to be dressed and presentable within a half-hour. Even as her nerves prickled at the thought of a night out with Dean, she’d enjoyed the process of getting ready and taking some time for herself. It was a familiar and soothing ritual, and by the time she’d emerged from her bedroom to find Dean absently tossing his keys up in one hand, her heart already felt a few ounces lighter.

That’s not to say that the night had started as anything more than mildly tolerable, however. Beth thinks she could’ve cut the tension thrumming between them with a knife the moment she’d slid into the passenger seat and from there, the atmosphere took a sharp but predictable nosedive. 

She’d managed to hold up a polite conversation for the first few minutes, sprinkling in some light bantering when it felt natural to, but being in such an enclosed space with Dean had felt nothing short of suffocating up until they’d reached their destination—a relatively high-end Italian joint in a corner of the suburbs bordering downtown.

The fact that Rio chose to text her in the middle of their conversation certainly didn’t help, either.

Because of course whatever he needed to meet with her about couldn’t wait until tomorrow (she knows he couldn’t give less of a shit about interfering with her plans _)_ and all it took her was a glance over at Dean—the sight of the crease in his forehead and the worrying line of his upturned brows—for indignation to burn low in her gut like a spark from a live wire.

When she’d informed him that she wasn’t home and he’d asked for an address, she’d powered off her phone and slid it into her purse without so much as a refusal in response.

The consequence of blowing him off would come later—that much she was sure of—but for tonight, she was going to indulge in a dish that she, for once, didn’t cook, and she was going to do it in a dress that she’d worn for no one but herself.

Despite her reservations about going out with Dean after the last experience, the actual dining portion of the outing has proven to be significantly less stifling than the initial car ride. The venue turned out to be more quaint than she’d been expecting for Dean’s taste, its provincial architecture charming in a way that the majority of the restaurants in her area failed to echo. The twinkling lights that hung from the black awnings accentuated the warmer tones that spilled from the interior of the building, and the accompanying melody of classical music had drawn her in before she’d even caught a whiff of the flavorful aroma. 

Now, with a half-eaten plate of pasta and her second glass of red wine in front of her, Beth tunes back into the placating hum of the music that drifts from the ceiling, her muscles feeling looser with the slight buzz she’s sporting and the stretch of silence the arrival of their food had brought with it. 

Her gaze wanders from where Dean sits in front of her, fork raised as he shovels a few threads of fettuccine into his mouth, to the glass window that looks out on the venue’s car park. It’s well past seven at this point--the sun had settled behind the horizon by the time they’d arrived--and the trickle of patrons has thinned with the progression of the night. Only a few parties fill the tables around them now, which she figures is more likely due to it being a Thursday than anything else, and she finds herself more intrigued with the ambiguous stories of the strangers next to her than she is with the man across from her. 

Two tables to her right, two women sit across from each other, their fingers intertwined beside the table’s centerpiece as they converse in hushed tones, the brunette’s laugh airy and melodic as she glides her thumb tenderly over the redhead’s knuckles. Diagonal to them, a middle-aged man sits opposite a young girl, and the resemblance between them is uncanny when they break out into the same toothy grin. 

Beth smiles fondly, the sight of both scenes tugging at her heartstrings, and she’s so preoccupied in her people-watching, actively scoping out the next pair of strangers, that she barely even registers Dean excusing himself to use the restroom. She nods absently as he rises from the table, her attention too aloof to even spare him a glance, and she lets her wine glass dangle between her fingers as her gaze settles on a group of three seated near the bar section. She instantly discerns the markers of a traditional girls’ night, and that sparks something warm in her chest, too, her lips curling into a gentle smile at the familiarity of it.

Her attention is still slightly detached, her glass partially raised towards her lips, when someone settles into the seat across from her, and she blinks, confusion shrouding her tipsy mind as she pulls her gaze back to the table, because Dean hasn’t even been gone for more than——

“Yo.”

Beth just barely catches herself before her wine glass can slip from her grasp, her fingers tightening on the stem, and she can feel her eyes widen in alarm as she takes in the sight of Rio sitting across from her. 

He’s hunched forward, his elbows bracketing Dean’s pasta dish on the table as he laces his fingers together above it, and the tempered fury in his dark gaze belies his amicable demeanor. The restaurant’s dim lighting hits his sharp features at just the right angle, casting long shadows across the other half of his face as he tilts his head to the side, his jaw working furiously. His gaze drags hotly over her form, lingering at the bust of her dress, but it’s lacking its usual mischief and she swallows thickly as his eyes raise to meet her own.

“We gotta talk,” Rio drawls, the intensity in his dark eyes effectively sobering her. Beth straightens in her chair as she drops her wine glass back to the table, her eyes sweeping the surrounding area to ensure that no one has taken an interest in their conversation.

“You can’t be here,” she hisses, sliding her gaze back to him, knowing that Dean could be exiting the restroom at any minute now and that this is quite possibly the last thing she wants to be interrogated about.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interruptin’ somethin’?” Rio quips, his angular eyebrows shooting up his forehead in faux-innocence, and Beth instantly bristles, shifting forwards in her chair, already feeling the thin reserve of her patience beginning to drain out of her.

“You knowyou are. You can’t just——”

“Tough,” he interjects, and she just blinks at him a moment, dumbfounded, before her hands are balling into fists beneath the tablecloth, her composure unraveling like a spool of thread.

“Excuse me?”

“See, I thought’chu knew by now that my messages ain’t a suggestion,” Rio answers lowly, his features hardening, and Beth catches a glimpse of something sharp and unhinged in his dark eyes that makes her swallow thickly. “Ev’rybody you know might roll over when you ain’t available, but I ain’t them.”

“I was——” she starts, but then he’s is shaking his head at her, his jaw tensing in a tell-tale warning.

“This ain’t a negotiation, sweetheart. You check your messages and pick up the damn phone ‘less you wanna be off payroll again.”

Beth nods, biting her tongue before a mindless retort can tumble from her lips and set him off again. She glances in the general direction of the bathrooms, searching for any sign of Dean, and even though he’s nowhere to be seen yet, she doesn’t want to push her luck.

“I got it,” she replies, placating, her voice low and tight, and she doesn’t even realize she’s still nodding before her gaze settles back on him to find a bemused smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. He nods in return, and his anger seems to recede a bit at her concession, at least, though she can feel his irritation prickling in the space between them as his expression sobers again.

“Cool. You got five minutes.” 

With that, Rio is on his feet and striding out of the restaurant before Beth’s mind has the chance to catch up with what he’d said. Her gaze lingers on his retreating form, watching as he jerks his chin up in acknowledgment at one of the hosts before casting his gaze out over the parking lot. His jaw is set and his lips are parted as he pushes through the double glass doors, and he tosses a fleeting glance over his shoulder in her direction before sinking into the cover of night.

Distantly, she registers the sound of the chair across from her giving under someone’s weight, and her mind is still trying to process what the hell just happened when a voice breaks through her thoughts, drawing her back to the present.

“Beth? Is everything okay?”

Her gaze snaps back to the table, registering that it’s once again Dean who’s sitting across from her, and she expels a harsh breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding as she nods adamantly. She studies his expression—notes the way his brows are slightly furrowed in worry as his gaze darts to the entrance, following her previous line of sight—and relief floods through her as she realizes that he hadn’t caught sight of Rio. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Beth says, the excuse pouring too easily from her lips as she waves an errant hand out in front of her. “Just thinking about a big order I have to get started on tomorrow. It’s a custom printing job, and this lady—the client—gave us like, three days' notice for it, so.” 

Dean purses his lips, the lines of his forehead creasing as he glances down at his dish. 

“Oh. Well, don’t you guys have a policy for that, or something?” He asks, his eyes flicking back up to meet hers. “There’s gotta be a limit on how late you can place an order, right?”

Beth sighs noncommittally, already tired of having to spin this narrative while trying to map out a subtle exit route in her head.

“Sure, but it’s good for our reputation if we take on last-minute projects whenever possible,” she explains, attempting to remain inconspicuous as she sneaks a hand into the purse at her feet, blindly rifling through it for her phone as Dean grins at her from the opposite end of the table.

“Right, totally. It’s all about getting the name out, you know?”

Beth blinks up at him, momentarily frozen as her fingers graze the edge of her phone because she’s sure she’s heard that before, which is——

“Right,” she affirms, shaking herself free of her stupor and straightening back up in her seat. She powers her phone back on, already beginning to tune Dean out as the phone logo fades away and her wall of notifications fills the screen. She flicks through them—represses an eye-roll as Rio’s missed calls and messages glare back up at her—before painting a layer of exasperation onto her expression and dialing up her frustrated worker façade. 

“I’m so sorry, I have to take care of this. We hired a new artist the other week and now she’s having problems with the printer,” she huffs, gesturing to her phone flippantly like it’s done her a great disservice before scooting her chair back and excusing herself from the table. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Dean makes no effort to stop her, assuring her that it’s no problem, and she graciously slips away without issue before making a beeline for the entrance. She fights the urge to keep her head down as she passes the host’s station, offering the man behind it a polite nod as she pushes through the double doors and steps out onto the sidewalk. 

The chill of the evening air bites at the skin of her legs where the hem of her dress stops short of and Beth crosses her arms over her chest, regretting not having thought to bring her coat out with her. She sweeps her gaze across the half-vacant parking lot, irritation already starting to prick at the base of her neck when Rio is nowhere to found. She tightens her arms around herself, taking a few tentative steps onto the asphalt in hopes of broadening her line of sight, and her shoulders slump in equal parts exasperation and relief when her gaze lands on a svelte figure, donned in all black, resting against the brick wall to her right.

Her kitten heels clack against the pavement as she starts towards it, the sound enough to draw Rio’s wandering gaze away from where it’d been surveying the area on his right. His eyes take her up and down yet again as she nears him, his lips curling in amusement as they linger on her crossed arms, and he at least seems to be in a better mood now than he had been back in the restaurant. He looks unfairly good, his maroon shirt buttoned up to his throat beneath the lapels of his wool coat. The sight of his smile causes something sharp and jaded to flare up in her chest—it almost always does, nowadays—and she squeezes herself a little tighter when she stops in front of him, their height difference hardly discernible with the additional inches her heels grant her. 

Or, maybe still discernible, Beth thinks, biting down on the urge to take a step back when Rio straightens up, pushing himself off of the wall and into her space. She tilts her chin up, imbuing as much frustration and defiance as she can into her expression as she holds his steady gaze. However, this only amuses him further, his lips splitting as his smile broadens and exposes the top row of his perfect teeth. He jerks his head back in the direction of the building. 

“How’s the husband?”

Beth rolls her eyes.

“Why are you here?”

Rio sucks his lower lip into his mouth, his gaze flitting over her features thoughtfully before dancing out across the parking lot.

“Need a favor,” he replies a moment later, his eyes settling back on her as if to gauge her reaction. She suppresses the urge to make a retort or refuse altogether, knowing that despite the tentative cease-fire they’ve been maintaining for the past few weeks, he still has a short fuse when it comes to her, and she still has a long road ahead of her before she’s back in his good graces. 

“What kind of favor?” She prompts, her tone tepid as she eyes him warily.

“Got a meetin’ up North tomorrow night. You comin’ with.”

Beth feels her eyes widen before covering up in her shock, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she shakes her head slowly. The last time she’d been to a meeting with him was before—— well, when they were still partners, but now——

“Why do you need me there?” She asks, praying that her voice doesn’t sound as disbelieving to his ears as it does to her own. It’s not that she’s _opposed_ to going, necessarily—she’d made it clear that, come hell or high water, she was to be just as involved in the decision-making as he was when they did things fifty-fifty—but now, after everything that’s transpired between them, it just doesn’t click that he’d voluntarily involve her with his clientele. He’s made it clear that she’s useful to him as a producer—nothing more, nothing less.

Now, though, he just shrugs, jutting out his bottom lip and tilting his head as he considers her.

“I prefer to see for myself who’s behind the manufacturin’ line before I make any deals. This guy runs his business the same.”

As Beth processes these words—remembers how the first thing he’d done when he’d found out about her operation was demand to see how she did it—she feels herself begin to nod, her eyes darting over his shoulder briefly as a metal door screeches open in the alley behind him. She watches an employee saunter out of the building with a sizable trash bag in each hang and a pair of earbuds dangling over his chest, his head bobbing along to a song she can’t hear, before Rio’s low drawl steals back her attention.

“You ain’t tryna sell him nothin’. You just gon’ tell ‘im what you make, how you do it, and how fast you can get it done. I’ll take care of the rest,” he explains slowly, laying everything out for her, and she’s briefly dumbstruck by the pacifying quality of his voice, so unaccustomed to receiving any sort of reassurance from him. Regardless, she finds herself nodding with a bit more certainty, a light thrill zipping through her at the thought of being acknowledged for her work, and she tries not to read into the way his lips quirk up as he surveys her reaction.

“Where’s the meeting?” She asks, tightening her arms around herself as a harsh gust of wind sends a shiver down her spine. She watches as Rio’s eyes drop, then, clocking the way her cleavage becomes more defined against the neckline of her dress, and she shoots him a lackluster glare as a blush erupts across her chest.

“Yeah, you ain’t gotta worry ‘bout that. We takin’ my car.”

Beth sets her lips in a grim line, barely managing to suppress a groan because the thought of being strapped down in his car after the last two incidents pretty much makes her want to fling herself off of a high-rise balcony.

“Will you at least tell me what time to be ready by?” She relents, jutting a hip out as she shifts her weight between her feet. She half expects his eyes to follow the motion but his dark gaze holds her own, and she resists the urge to squirm again beneath his scrutiny as something indecipherable flashes across his face.

It’s gone as soon as it appears, though, and he takes a step towards her when he finally answers, “Eight. Best have all them babies of yours squared away, yeah?” 

Beth nods absently, her thoughts scattering as she finds herself incredibly aware of their proximity, and she swears she almost sways into him slightly before Rio is slipping out from between her and the wall. His arm brushes up against hers as he side-steps her, and she steels herself when his breath tickles the nape of her neck and the low rumble of his voice slips down her spine.

“Might wanna wear somethin’ warmer, too, or we ain’t makin’ it there on time.”

She cranes her neck to look up at him, trying to decipher the weight of his words by catching a glimpse of his expression, but his face is carefully impassive—save for the infuriating smirk that so often takes up residence there—as he rakes his gaze over her form one last time. Before she can make anything out of it, he’s striding off towards the parking lot, burying his hands deep in the pockets of his coat.

Beth’s gaze lingers on his retreating form until he disappears into the maze of cars. She gathers her bearings once he’s out of sight, her gaze flitting back to the entrance of the restaurant where Dean is waiting inside for her. She tips her head back, coating her face in the soft glow of the moonlight as she sighs heavily, emptying her lungs of about ten different emotions that she thinks she’ll never have enough energy to decipher. When she tips her head forwards again, she forces her legs to carry her back into the welcoming glow of the restaurant, folding herself back into the mundane mold she no longer fits.

···

Beth is debating over which piece of outwear is more suitable for a business meeting with an established racketeer when a loud knock sounds from the front of the house.

With a sigh and a lingering glance at her reflection, she deposits her dark grey blazer and black peacoat on top of her mattress, subconsciously tugging at the hem of her sweater as she makes her way to the front door. She can hear the boisterous chorus of childish cackles and little footsteps across the hardwood above her, and she says a silent prayer that one of them doesn’t tumble down the stairs before she’s ready to leave.

She can see the blurred outline of her sister through the glass door as she nears it, and she takes a fortifying breath before wrapping her hand around the knob and pulling it open. 

“Finally!” Annie huffs as Beth moves aside to let her through. “My ass was about to go numb.”

Beth rolls her eyes as she shuts the door behind her, trailing behind Annie as she makes her way to the kitchen. Her arms are crossed over her chest in what Beth presumes to be an effort to retain warmth, and she rubs her hands vigorously over her sweater-clad arms. 

“How far away did you park?” Beth quips, navigating her way past the island as Annie drops heavily into one of the stools. She sticks her tongue out at Beth as she pulls her beanie off of her head and drops it on the counter in front of her.

“ _Haha,”_ Annie drawls, shifting in her seat until she’s comfortable. _“_ I parked in the driveway but my car heater is busted.”

Beth glances up from where she’d been fiddling with a dial on the stove, her eyebrows shooting up beneath her bangs.

“ _Again?”_

Annie purses her lips into a thin line as she nods, the bleached tips of her hair swaying with the bob of her head. Beth shakes her head with a disbelieving scoff before turning her attention back towards the pot on the stovetop. She’d dug through the freezer long enough to unearth a forgotten Tupperware container full of leftover pasta, which is about as close to proper nutrition as the kids will get when under Annie’s jurisdiction.

“Of course, you wouldn’t know much about car troubles when you’re always being chauffeured around in gang friend’s G-wagon,” Annie comments, and Beth scoffs louder this time as she idly stirs the contents of the pot, attempting to brush off the edge of seriousness in Annie’s otherwise sarcastic tone.

“Please. I’ve been in his car twice, and I was more of a hostage than a passenger,” Beth deadpans, ignoring the way the accumulation of her dread sinks like a heavy stone to the pit of her stomach. 

Even knowing that tonight is different from the last two incidents, she’s still incredibly unnerved by the idea of being in his car again; he’s too much of a wild card for her to ever feel at ease when he has that much control over her. His proximity certainly doesn’t help her any, either—not when she can smell the mixture of his aftershave and cologne, unable to forget what it felt like to be wrapped up in it in her bedroom, tasting it on her tongue as she mapped out the column of his throat with her lips——

“Not tonight, though, right?” Annie prompts, slicing through the thick fog of Beth’s wandering thoughts. “I doubt he’d give you time to arrange for childcare if he planned on abducting you again.”

Beth nods her head a bit absently, willing herself to get a grip and focus back on the conversation. She bites her tongue on disputing that, despite his lack of consideration for her schedule, Rio would never force her to leave her children unattended. After dealing with the fallout of the _jilted lovers_ comment and her offhand admission of having slept with him a second time, she figures defending him will most definitely cause more trouble than it’s worth.

“We’re meeting with a distributor who’s interested in moving the fake cash,” Beth supplies, gliding across the kitchen to grab the carton of milk from the fridge. She suppresses a groan when she’s met with the barren state of it, already mentally carving out space in her schedule for a trip to the store as she snatches the near-empty carton from the bottom shelf.

“So is this like, a promotion or something? Last time you went to a meeting with him, you were still ‘partners’ or whatever,” Annie says, and Beth frowns a bit as she turns back towards the stove, unsure of how to interpret her use of air quotes. She shakes her head all the time, though, her nerves too fired up for her to willingly draw attention to it.

“I don’t think so. I’m just pitching our product and proposing a time frame,” she replies, dousing the pasta in a thin layer of milk before screwing the plastic cap back on. She fiddles with the dial on the stove so that the pot simmers on low heat before turning back to face Annie.

“Okay so, not to sound like I don’t adore any excuse to spend time with my lovely nieces and nephews, but why do you need me to stay the night? It sounds like it’ll take an hour or two, tops,” Annie questions, her full brows furrowing as she gestures a hand loosely out in front of her. Beth plucks the hand towel from where it’s draped over the oven handle, idly wiping her hands on it to keep herself occupied.

“It’s in Canada. I’m not sure how far the drive is, and I didn’t want you waiting up for me,” she explains, still irritated that Rio hadn’t given her any more details to go off of. The thought sparks a reminder of what he _had_ told her, though, and her gaze darts over to the display on the microwave before she can help herself. A fleeting thrill sparks in her chest before she shifts her gaze back to Annie.

“I have to finish getting ready. Do you think you could check on the kids upstairs?”

Annie’s gaze flits up towards the ceiling—the cacophonous laughter of her children still bouncing off the walls—as she takes a fortifying breath.

“Yeah. If you hear a scream, though, it’s probably mine,” she jokes, bracing her hands on the edge of the counter and slipping down from her stool. Beth rolls her eyes affectionately at her retreating form, fidgeting with the gold chain resting against her collarbone as her thoughts wander back to the night ahead of her. She watches Annie's small form travel up the staircase, waiting until she disappears from her line of sight before shuttering her mounting nerves and willing her feet to move.

Upon re-entering her bedroom, the raucous voices above her are momentarily dulled by the trill of her cellphone. It only sounds once, signaling that she’s received a new text, and Beth slows as she eyes the device resting atop her bedspread.

And it’s stupid, she thinks, that she can be in this deep with him—can still look him in the eye and walk beside him and allow his salacious comments to roll off of her like she hadn’t put three bullets in his chest and he hadn’t been intent on returning the favor a mere month ago—and still feel her heartbeat stutter at a simple text message.

Beth shakes her head to herself, tempering her wayward emotions as she retrieves her phone from the bed, and sure enough, spots a new message occupying the otherwise empty portion of her lock screen.

_Five minutes._

She opens up their message chain, scrolling through it to ensure she hasn’t missed anything else, but his texts are all akin to the latest one; always deliberately cryptic. Briefly, witlessly, she wonders if he’d sent the message while he was driving—if he’s just as reckless when it comes to driving as he is with every other law he undermines, or if he’d waited until he was at a red light, paused in traffic, only abiding by the rules that pertained to his obscure moral compass. It doesn’t take her very long to settle with the latter; if she knows nothing else about him and his relationship with the law, she knows for certain that he’s not ignorant.

_He’s not dumb,_ chimes a voice that’s not her own, distant and foreign and laden with contempt. The memory of it aches like a fading bruise that’s been prodded at.

Beth sets her phone onto her nightstand with a bit more force than necessary as she shifts her attention to the articles of clothing laid out on her bed. She studies them a moment before she spins around, her gaze settling on the mirror instead as she takes in the curvaceous line of her reflection. She’d decided on a form-fitting black sweater with a keyhole cutout just above her cleavage (not that that detail factored into her choice, she reminds herself) and a newish pair of dark wash jeans that she hasn’t worn often enough to break in yet. She sighs softly as she fiddles with the hem of the sweater, tugging it back down over the waistband from where it had ridden up slightly as she considers her options. 

The blazer would add a touch of professionalism to the otherwise casual undertone of her outfit, while the peacoat would likely help her blend in just the same as Rio’s all-black ensembles always do. Her mind snags on that thought for a moment, her memory supplying it with the image of him in the black wool coat he’d worn at the restaurant as she turns back around, edging closer to her bed until she’s absently running her fingers over the thick material of the peacoat.

She’s plucking it off of the bed and slipping it on over her shoulders before she even registers that she’s decided to do so, her actions driven by the sudden surge of some emotion she can’t name. 

The fabric is rough against her neck as she flattens the lapels against her chest, her pale skin seeming stark and nearly translucent against the coat’s black canvas. Her fingers dance across it as she fastens each button on the bottom half of it, leaving the ones that sit above the belt undone. She fastens that, too, winding it around her waist and tugging the two ends together until it sits snugly against her form. She ties it off with a loose bow before dropping her hands to her sides and giving herself a final once-over. 

The coat parts just above the belt, the gap widening across the span of her chest; the keyhole in her sweater is somewhat framed by the lapels, and Beth feels her lips curl into a soft smile at the rush of confidence the sight invokes. She can’t remember the last time she felt like this—attractive, but not in a way that served to gain something or appease someone. It’s not difficult to figure out why given the events of the past three months, but regardless of the reason, she’s missed feeling desirable. 

The serene moment of reflection is shattered by the trill of her phone, and she feels a seed of anxiety lay roots in her heart and bloom like a wildflower in her chest. She holds the gaze of her reflection for another moment before moving towards her nightstand. 

Rio’s text is no-frills as per usual. Her eyes scan over the lone word, _outside,_ before she slips her phone into the pocket of her coat. She slips into the pair of boots she’d set out earlier and turns off the light before striding out of her room.

A symphony of footsteps greets Beth as she’s rounding the corner of the staircase. A grin spills over her lips when the kids come scurrying down one-by-one, babbling about something or other as Annie trails behind them. 

Jane and Emma are the first to reach her, throwing their arms around her waist for a parting hug, and Beth plants a kiss atop both of their heads as she squeezes them tight. They’re quick to flee to the kitchen once they release her and Kenny follows after them, pausing to give Beth a brief hug as he passes her (and stifling his objection when she lays a kiss on his head, too). Finally, her eyes fall on Danny as he shuffles over to her, her smile slipping away from her face when she clocks the stiffness of his posture and the slight pout to his lips.

“Hey, baby, is everything okay?” Beth asks gently, crouching so that she’s level with his gaze and brushing a hand over his shoulder. 

Danny is hesitant when his eyes meet hers and it’s obvious that he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. She huffs softly, smoothing her hand over his shoulder until she’s gently cupping the back of his neck.

“Does something hurt?”

Beth watches his face contort for a moment before he smooths out his expression, and she holds her breath as she patiently waits him out. He’s silent for a beat or two before he shakes his head, and she presses her lips into a thin line.

“Are you sure?” She prompts once more, gliding her thumb over the soft skin at the nape of his neck in a soothing manner. In contrast to his siblings, Danny’s timid nature tends to drive him to the sidelines whenever he senses conflict; it makes it even more difficult for him to acknowledge and share conflicts of his own, and it tugs sharply on Beth’s heart whenever he tries to mask his pain from her.

Danny nods with a bit more assurance, his blonde bangs sliding across his forehead with the action. She nods back at him and paints on a smile, knowing that there’s something he isn’t willing to tell her but opting to let it go until he’s ready to address it. She presses a lingering kiss to his forehead as she cups his cheek in her hand, her thumb brushing over the dusting of freckles there. He offers her a smile that damn near melts her heart, and she runs her fingers through his hair before placing a hand on his back, gently guiding him to join his siblings.

Annie is leaning against the railing when Beth’s gaze falls on her and despite her lax posture, she easily spots the affection that dances across her little sister’s eyes.

“Will you keep an eye on him?” Beth asks her even though she already knows she will. Annie replies with a curt nod before she pushes herself off of the banister, coming to stand in front of Beth properly.

“You know, sometimes I think I should be threatened by your parenting skills, but then I remember that I basically gave them to you so, really, it evens out,” she quips, her lips tugging up into a knowing grin that holds entirely too much history. Beth feels her heart crack a bit further at the gentle reminder of a childhood that seems so far away now, but she’s extending her arms and wrapping Annie in her embrace before she can sink further into the emotions flooding through her.

“Thank you,” She breathes. Annie merely tightens her hold in lieu of responding, nodding against her shoulder until they part a moment later. Beth tries not to read into the way Annie’s brows furrow and her hands wring together as she fixes her with a small smile.

“Be careful, okay?” Annie says a moment later, shoving her hands into her jean pockets to curb her restless fidgeting. Beth nods sharply, the lump that has suddenly lodged itself in her throat making it difficult to push any words past it. Annie nods back, her concern lingering in her wide-eyed gaze and her rigid posture, but her gaze flits over to where the kids are rambling aimlessly to one another in the kitchen before she can add anything else. With nothing left to be said, she gives Beth an affectionate squeeze on the arm before moving past her towards the kitchen. 

Beth’s phone chimes with an incoming message as Annie bounds back over to her children, and she inhales a shaky breath as her gaze settles on the front door. She pulls her phone from her coat pocket almost absently, her muscles going through the motions before her mind can catch up with them, and she’s not surprised when she’s met with a text from Rio on her lock screen.

_You coming out or am I coming in?_

Beth huffs out a laugh that’s devoid of any humor as she slips her phone back into her pocket and shakes her head, shoving her doubt and fear to the back of her mind as she nears the door. She’s thinking it’s a bitter sort of laughable as she forces herself through the foyer, past the threshold, and out into the frigid Detroit air—her gaze immediately spotting Rio like a beacon against the stagnant darkness of her street—that such a simple question sums up their complicated dynamic so perfectly.

···

The drive across the border is less stifling than Beth had been bracing for. It’s no less frustrating than it had been the previous night that Rio still refuses to provide her with more details, but it at least gives her some time to prepare for the night ahead of her.

With the scraps of information that she _was_ able to pry from Rio, she can understand why he’d been so insistent on bringing her along with him. The meeting is with a well-established distributor named Malik Grant who’s made multiple efforts to move his operation further South in the past few months; his interests shifted to laundering fake cash after one of his associates got nabbed for smuggling at a border check. This, Rio explained, was why he’d insisted upon bringing her along to vouch for them—not only was her product fresh and concealable, but her appearance would likely help him sell the covert appeal of their operation. 

It made her feel something she was having trouble assigning a name to—the thrill of being involved in this part of the business that Rio had long since excluded her from after their short run as partners. Ever since he came back, her role in his operation has been fairly detached beyond store pick-ups and drops, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss the hit of adrenaline that came with meeting clients and brokering deals. 

It brings up all sorts of memories that she’s put copious amounts of effort into trying to suppress ever since she’d tried to cut things off with him the first time. Memories of him back in her office, eyeing her from across her desk and practically propositioning her before he’d relented to giving her half of his business. As much as she’d prefer to spin a tale that tells otherwise, she knows that a large portion of the thrill always came from the unabated intrigue he always seemed to regard her with. It made her feel wanted in more ways than she could count—in ways she’s come to realize Dean was never capable of fulfilling—and now they finally seem to be back in the realm of that same place. 

These are the thoughts that steadily creep in as the first half-hour of the car ride bleeds into the second, making their way past the barrier she’s been routinely reinforcing since the day he came back. It took a notable hit the night she’d meet with him in the showroom, the familiarity of his blunt suggestiveness and careless flirtation throwing her off-guard and leaving her mind reeling for hours after the fact. She hasn’t quite slotted all of the bricks back into place yet—a fact that became evident to her as soon as she’d entered his line of vision tonight, slipping on a passive mask as his dark eyes drank her in from across the street—and being in such an enclosed space with him so soon after is doing her no favors.

Once she got over the initial hurdle of accepting his nearness and the effect it has on her, it became easier to fix her attention on the changing scenery around them and shift it away from the way his fingers curled around the steering wheel as he gripped it steadily, or the soft thrum of music that spilled out of the speakers in a language she only recognized bits and pieces of. The pristine quiet of the suburbs quickly gave way to the bustling activity of the city, and Beth found herself captivated by the looming sight of high-rise quarters and the close-knit draw of curbside eateries and local businesses adorning the corners of each intersection. She drank in the sprawling scene of Detroit’s nightlife until the warm glow emanating from its upscale buildings faded into the inky black horizon of the inner-city. 

For a while thereafter, there wasn’t much to take in beyond cracked pavement, overgrown foliage, crumbling buildings, and foreclosure signs. It was the type of area she’d grown used to traversing in her teen years after her father left—leaving his two daughters with a mother who could barely manage to drag herself out of bed to feed herself, let alone go grocery shopping and pay the bills—and they were forced to downsize.

Beth’s gaze didn’t linger on the scenery for much longer after that.

She tried to coax a bit of small talk out of Rio from time to time, but she’s never known him to humor her in that regard for more than a few minutes, and tonight was no different. He was selective in the information that he gave her, always has been, and she struggled to get a word out of him edgewise once she reached her allowance in regards to the meeting. Their exchanges became few and far in-between once they hit the one-hour mark, and the rhythmic oscillation of the car ride began to hail a wave of drowsiness. She’d glanced at the display on the dash for long enough to know that they’d passed the two-hour mark before she conceded to the pull of the tide.

Now, as the terrain beneath the car transitions from smooth pavement to uneven gravel, Beth resurfaces, consciousness once again finding her and urging her on as she gathers her bearings. 

Her eyelids flutter as her gaze adjusts to the dark interior of the car before she fixes it on the bright glow of the console in front of her. She registers the ache in her neck a moment later as the stiffness in her joints makes itself known, and she raises a hand to the back of her neck before kneading at the tender muscle there. Her eyes flit from the illuminated dashboard to the windshield as she presses the pads of her fingers into a tense point of her neck, the scenery blurring like wet paint as it drips and spreads across the black canvas of the night. There are a few tiny, lopsided residences dotting the surrounding grasslands, but they quickly cycle to the back of Beth’s mind when she spots an industrial brick building about a half-mile down the road.

Beth sits up a bit straighter in her seat as the surrounding area comes into view. She steals a glance at Rio as he flips his blinker on, unsurprised when to find his gaze fixed on the road as he executes a flawless right turn. His features are drawn in clear focus, his brows furrowed and lips pursed in a way that makes her want to capture the lower one between her teeth. 

She shakes her head slightly, knocking the thought loose from her brain and burying it in the back of her mind.

In her periphery, she catches the tilt of Rio’s head as he tears his gaze from the road to fix it on her. She refuses to meet it, knowing full well that her eyes will betray her by dropping to his lips, and she resists the urge to squirm beneath his attention before he speaks up.

“Sleep well, sweetheart?”

And, well, Beth can’t quite resist looking at him now. She shoots him an unimpressed look, her fingers pointedly working at the tense muscles in her neck as she does it, and she’s thoroughly unsurprised to find that his full lips have curled up into a smug grin. She can see a flash of his white teeth and there’s a teasing glint to his dark gaze. She refuses to acknowledge the way it makes her heart stutter as she drags her eyes from his.

“Like royalty,” she deadpans, grunting softly when she hits a particularly sore spot at the base of her neck. She swears that Rio shifts in his seat slightly, but he’s talking again before she can think too much of it.

“Good,” he replies, dismissing her blatant sarcasm as his tone shifts into something more serious. “‘Cause we gotta talk.”

Her head pivots back towards him as she shifts in her seat to better face him. “About the meeting?”

“Yeah, so I’mma need you to listen for once.”

Beth huffs at that, the force of her breath causing her bangs to ruffle slightly before she concedes with a sharp nod.

“You bein’ there is a formality,” Rio starts, his voice deep and amiable in a way that she could almost consider reassuring. “You answer any questions he got about your system and timeline or whatnot, but you ain’t askin’ any. You ain’t tryna sell nothin’ and you ain’t negotiatin’, neither. That’s my department, yeah?”

Beth nods once more, biting her tongue on a bitter rebuttal to the familiar phrase as she files his instructions away for later use. Her gaze lingers on the windshield as they close in on the warehouse, the low rumble of gravel giving beneath the wheels of the car filling her ears like static.

“You said one of his former associates was caught at the border. Is that why you brought me? To gain his trust?” She inquires, her gaze darting over to him as he pulls up beside the building and shifts gears. He tosses an arm over the back of her seat and Beth stiffens, not quite sure whether she’s resisting the urge to flinch away from his touch or lean into it.

“More or less, yeah,” Rio answers, craning his head around so that he can see out of the rear window as he reverses smoothly. Beth’s eyes trail over his profile briefly as the brake lights shower him in their reddish hue, drinking in the sharp outline of his cheekbones before dipping to trace the scruff decorating his jawline. She traces the outline of his fulls lips, parted slightly in concentration, before following the angular line of his nose to the elegant fan of eyelashes outlining his dark, hooded eyes. It hits her so viciously, then, how breathtaking he is, and something sharp and hot twists in her chest at the thought. 

Rio glances over at her, his lips tugging up into a smug grin as he presumably confirms she’s been staring. 

Beth tears her gaze away instantly, her eyes jumping to the posh display to find that the main screen has been replaced by a back-up camera and that Rio has opted against using it. She clings to the bit of information it gives her about him, however negligible it may be, relieved to have something to think about besides the heat prickling across her cheeks and up to the tips of her ears. 

She wonders if he refuses to use it because he believes he has better judgment than a camera (which wouldn’t surprise her, given his baseline degree of arrogance), or if it’s just something he’d never adjusted to after years of learning to drive without it when he was young. The thought spurs the same sharpness in her chest from before, so Beth stows it away in the back of her mind for the time being.

“Bein’ thorough is the best way to do it,” Rio continues, his low drawl breaking through her thoughts. “Face like yours ain’t easy to argue with, neither.”

He grins, the action dart quick as he says it before he's facing back around and shifting the car into park. Beth barely resists taking the bait as she squints over at him, studying his expression for some ulterior meaning to his words.

“I’m pretty sure that’s your favorite thing to do,” she retorts, her tone sounding thoroughly unimpressed. Rio just laughs, shaking his head lightly to himself as he undoes his seatbelt and pops the driver’s side door open. Beth thinks she hears him mutter _sure_ but she drops it, unbuckling her own seatbelt and climbing out after him.

The terrain shifts beneath her feet as the crunch of gravel echoes through the desolate lot. Beth sweeps her gaze over it, taking in the iridescent lights spilling through the windows of the warehouse. It’s roughly the same size as the one she’d seen Rio posted up in way back when, but there appear to be multiple levels to it rather than just one floor. There are two rusty steel doors on either end of it with the main entrance tucked between them, the door elevated slightly on a platform with steel banisters lining the edges. There are only three other cars in this area of the lot, though it appears to hold dozens more given its width, and she tries not to think too much about the fact that the venue’s practically been cleared out for this meeting. 

Rio beckons her over with a jerk of his chin, drawing her attention back to him as she rounds the hood of his car, and she falls into step with him as they start towards the building’s entrance. Beth stuffs her hands into her coat pockets, mirroring his stance as they tread across the lot in silence, his composed confidence somewhat easing the whirlwind of nerves wreaking havoc in her stomach. 

Rio reaches the door first, curling his fingers around the handle with no trace of hesitation. The metallic screech of the door’s hinges ricochets off of the concrete as he pulls it open, and Beth catches the mild amusement that graces his dark gaze when she visibly flinches. 

He props the door open with his shoulder, nodding his head towards the opening as he drawls, “Ladies first.”

Beth stifles the urge to roll her eyes at him, inhaling a steeling breath and squaring her shoulders before sliding past him into the warehouse.

And as she’s giving the interior of it a cursory once-over, she thinks that this has to be a first for her, because it somehow seems _more_ foreboding from the inside than it had from the outside.

She vaguely registers the sound of a _clang_ a few paces behind her but she pays it no mind as her eyes drag over the contents scattered across the cement flooring. There’s no shortage of cardboard boxes lying around, and though most of them appear to be empty or torn, there’s a row of them lining the wall near a narrow spiral staircase that appears to be filled with items of the artisanal sort. She can guess that the staircase leads up to the floor where the meeting is being held, given that there isn’t much down here that would offer adequate privacy for it.

Rio strolls past her while she’s still taking stock of her surroundings, leaving her to catch up with his lengthy strides. 

The space feels unnervingly hollow as the clack of her heeled boots echoes throughout it, and the pit in Beth’s stomach only grows when they near the staircase, her gaze landing on the boxes she’d been studying a minute ago. There’s six of them, all strewn around the staircase, filled with guns and ammo packs.

She buries her hands a bit deeper into her pockets as she falls into step next to Rio, her nails cutting into the skin of her palms as she attempts to expel some of her nervous energy into them.

“You said this guy was interested in fake cash,” Beth murmurs when she gets close enough for him to hear it. “What’s with all the guns?”

“It’s all about flippin’ a game, darlin’. I don’t know his interests, but I’d say this was one of ‘em,” Rio replies, gesturing loosely to the boxes with one hand as he braces the other on the metal railing in front of him.

Beth nods absently, considering this as he begins to ascend the staircase, once again leaving her to follow after him. His words do little to quell the nervous energy thrumming through her, but she shoves it to the back of her mind for the sake of getting through this without incident. Despite every reason that should’ve nulled her trust in him long ago, she knows that Rio would be able to tell whether or not they’re in danger long before she could. 

Upon reaching the second floor of the warehouse, Beth is reminded of how empty the parking lot had been when she sees the lack of bodies occupying the space. The fluorescent lightboxes situated up in the rafters flood the space with an eery glow, but the majority of the rooms situated in the far corner appear to be dark, save for the one to the left of the staircase landing. It overlooks the expanse of the ground floor, a warm glow pouring from the slight crack in the door, and Beth looks to Rio for confirmation as she takes a tentative step into the open space.

He nods at her, the motion curt and indistinct, before he strides over towards the open door, his walk holding a degree of self-assurance and swagger that she knows her own doesn’t even come close to mirroring. Regardless, she follows after him, tilting her chin up and straightening her shoulders as she smothers the lingering tendrils of apprehension curling low in her gut.

Rio stalls a few paces from the door, his head turning so that his eyes fall on Beth as she stops beside him. 

“‘Member what I said, yeah? You answerin’ questions, not askin’ ‘em,” he drawls, low enough that only she can hear him. Although the low timbre of his voice still causes heat to lick up her ribcage, she manages to school her expression before he can see the effect of it, offering a sharp nod in reply before turning her gaze towards the door.

Rio studies her for a few beats, searching her face for some nonverbal cue, and she assumes that he finds whatever it is he’s looking for because in the next moment he’s lifting a fisted hand to the wooden door and rapping his knuckles against it. Almost instantly, a low, rumbling voice grants entrance from inside the room, and Beth follows after as Rio pushes through the doorway. 

The first thing she notices when they step into the room is a tan, brawny man perched on the edge of the desk, his black mane of hair slicked back, falling just past his ears. The second thing she notices is the pistol in his right hand that rests casually against his knee.

The man gestures them towards the two seats positioned in front of the desk as they step further into the room. Beth hears the door click shut behind her and turns towards Rio, silently waiting for his direction. She can feel the man’s eyes on her, can see him studying her in her periphery with an expression she can’t read, but she keeps her eyes on Rio as he strides towards the man with an outstretched arm.

“‘Ey, Mal, what’s good?” He drawls, the name stirring Beth’s memory of their conversation from earlier tonight. Mal reaches forward with his free hand and gives Rio’s a firm shake.

“Rio! It’s good to meet you, man,” he says, a warm smile spreading across his lips. Beth resists the urge to wrap her arms around herself as she watches the two of them exchange greetings. 

“Same here. ‘Preciate you settin’ this up for us,” Rio replies, releasing Mal’s hand before shifting his attention back to her. “This is Elizabeth. She handles the manufacturin’ in our operation.”

Beth disregards the impish smirk he shoots her way as he introduces her and turns towards Mal, stretching her hand out.

“Just Beth is fine,” she tells him, ignoring the way Rio’s smirk broadens as her pointed correction. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Mal raises a thick brow as his grey eyes dart between the two of them for a moment, but he promptly dismisses whatever he’d been thinking before shaking her hand, too. Beth takes a moment to consider him, her eyes roaming over his cubic jaw, wide lips, and attenuated nose. His collegial expression isn’t nearly as intimidating as his features precede him to be, so the casual placement of his weapon throws her for a bit of a loop.

“Likewise. Please, sit. We’ve got lots to discuss.”

And right, Beth thinks, her attention snapping back to the present as Rio wordlessly nudges her towards the chair closest to the door before planting himself in the one next to it.

That, they do.

···

The meeting proceeds without a hitch for about twenty minutes before Beth’s phone first chimes inside her coat pocket.

She’d set the volume of her ringer to the lowest possible volume, just in case something happened with the kids and Annie needed to reach her, but she immediately regrets not having set it on vibrate when the muffled noise draws the attention of both men from their conversation to her.

They’re discussing details about distribution and Rio’s proposed method for smuggling the cash past border checks when it happens. They’d already addressed the details about Beth’s operation within the first ten minutes; Mal insisted that there was nothing to discuss about a product that didn't have an experienced and viable producer. As planned, she’d answered every question he presented that didn’t concern profits or cuts as he studied her with the same pensive expression. He didn’t interrupt or make enervating comments like she realizes she’d been expecting—if anything, she saw a hint of respect flickering in his gaze as she spoke, and despite how circumspect he’d remained throughout their brief discussion, she couldn’t help the sense of pride that bubbled up in her chest once he’d appeared satisfied with her explanation.

This doesn’t mean that she’d particularly enjoyed having his attention on her. She realizes how grateful she was for the shift in focus when Rio took the wheel now, bearing the weight of both their gazes as she fumbles for her phone inside her coat pocket. Upon stealing a glance at both of their faces, she’s surprised to see that Mal’s expression doesn’t hold the same traces of irritation that Rio’s does. Instead, an undercurrent of skepticism creeps along his features, his previously honeyed gaze now brittle as he regards her with something akin to the interest he’d shown towards her before.

It’s unnerving, to say the least; Beth tears her gaze from his to her phone as she retrieves it from her pocket. Mal speaks up before she has the chance to check the message waiting for her on her lock screen.

“Everything alright?”

Beth’s eyes snap from her phone to him to find his steely eyes boring into her. She shoots him her trademark PTA smile as she slides the ringer to silent and shoves the phone back into her coat pocket, making a mental note to check her recent messages as soon as they wrap things up here. 

“Oh, it’s nothing. Sorry for the interruption—I could’ve sworn I had the thing on silent,” Beth says, voice laced with faux exasperation. She thinks she hears Rio shift in his seat a bit beside her but she pays him no attention, her gaze locked with Mal’s as his eyes narrow on her.

“Someone tryna reach you?” He prods, readjusting his grip on the handle of his gun. Beth’s eyes clock the motion before swiftly locking back on his again, her mind ticking over how much she’s willing to tell him, remembering what she’s learned firsthand from Rio about trusting too easily. 

She feels the familiar burn of his gaze without even having to look at him, hearing the warning that he doesn’t utter and before she even realizes she’s decided to do so, she’s fastening the mask of her tried and true housewife persona. 

“My mother,” she starts, sighing softly as though preparing to broach a difficult topic, “she’s been in the hospital for two weeks now.” 

Now she’s certain that Rio shifts beside her, his posture straightening imperceptibly as his attention hones in on her, but she pushes it to the back of her mind for the time being.

“They’re still running tests to figure out what the problem is, so my father is staying with her and sending me updates whenever they learn more information,” she finishes, the lie spilling from her lips like a sweet syrup. She shakes her head as if to clear it, ready to switch gears in the conversation when Mal hums lowly. 

She half expects Rio to intervene at this point, to coax the reigns back from her so that she doesn’t mess this up for her, but she finds something else lingering on the edges of his expression when she glances over at him—something close to fascination as he watches this spectacle, unable and unwilling to interrupt her, waiting to see what she’ll come up with next.

The clearing of a throat has Beth’s head snapping back in Mal’s direction. He’s no longer scrutinizing her with as much intensity, opting to let this incident go, she figures, and she breathes a mental sigh of relief when his gaze slides back over to Rio.

“So, what were you thinkin’ we start with? Two-fi’ty G’s?”

Beth suppresses the urge to gawk at this proposal, to panic as she runs the number through her head based on their current production rate. Instead, she watches as Rio licks his lips and shakes his head softly, re-centering himself in the conversation before he speaks up.

“That’s gonna be tough if you lookin’ to be up ’n’ runnin’ this month. Fifty G’s to start; if things work out, we go from there,” he counters, and Beth prays he doesn’t catch the way she practically sags back into her chair with relief.

Mal sniffs a bit, leaning forward to brace his other elbow against his knee.

“A cut o’ that ain’t gon’ be worth nothin’ to my associates,” he argues and Beth stiffens, sensing the shift in Rio’s demeanor as his hackles raise. 

“Yeah, see, they ain’t gettin’ nothin’ if you expectin’ two-fifty as a baseline outta a three-person operation. Our shit’s quality and that takes time. You get fifty to start, we see how you do, then you get more.”

Beth glances uneasily between the two of them as the air balloons with tension. It feels odd to not be on the receiving end of it with Rio for once, but the awareness of it does nothing to ease the nerves brewing low in her gut. She holds her breath as Mal furrows his brow, opening his mouth to reply when she feels her phone vibrate.

Luckily, neither men seem to have heard it, so Beth waits until Mal makes his rebuttal and continues the negotiation to discreetly pull her phone from her coat pocket. She crosses her left leg over her right, shifting in her chair so that her knee provides some cover before waking her phone and clicking on her recent messages.

Both texts are from Annie.

The first one is only mildly disconcerting, save for the fact that Annie knows better than to text her during a meeting unless it’s important. 

_I think you were right about Danny not feeling well. I’ll keep you updated._

Then, _Call me when you get the chance. He just threw up._

Beth bites at her lip, her teeth worrying it to the point of pain as she shifts, suddenly restless. She needs to call, needs to check in on Danny, needs to _be there_ for him, but instead, she’s trapped on the second story of some warehouse in Canada that’s three hours out from Detroit.

Before she can shoot Annie a text back or ask for further updates, she realizes that the room has gone silent, that Mal’s eyes are locked back on her. She tucks her phone between her outer thigh and the arm of the chair, shielding it from his line of vision as she fixes him with a reassuring smile.

“He asked you a question, Elizabeth,” Rio drawls out from beside her, frustration curling around each syllable, and upon seeing that his gaze is locked back on her, too, Beth realizes that she’s royally fucked up. 

She opens her mouth to reply—probably to gape uselessly like a fish out of water if she’s honest—but Mal beats her to it.

“Who you checkin’ in with, huh? You got somewhere else t’ be?” He pries, all previous traces of camaraderie vanishing from his tone as it dips into something low and menacing, the edge of suspicion from earlier expanding and consuming his words. 

Beth swallows, shrinking a fraction beneath the weight of his prying gaze, and her lips once again part for a reply that never comes as her phone—still very much on, because that would be just her luck—starts ringing, the tone blaring amidst the tense quiet of the room. She glances at it immediately, more on instinct than rational thought, and she’s unsurprised when she finds Annie’s contact filling the screen. 

She contemplates her next move—knows she’s toeing a very thin line here, knows that Mal is clearly on edge and already nearing the end of his rope with her, that there’ll be hell to pay with Rio if she ends up wrecking this deal for him. It doesn’t matter, though, not right now, not when all she can think of is the soft crease in Danny’s brow as he’d assured her he was alright—how he’d endured any pain he’d been experiencing because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Didn’t want to inconvenience her when she was on her way out the door, as though anything in the world could be more important than her sweet little Danny or his siblings, and god, is that the kind of mother she’s become?

With her mind made up and already working two steps ahead of her, Beth primly uncrosses her legs and rises from her chair with her phone clenched in her grip. The ringtone continues to bounce off the walls of the room, the space seeming much more suffocating than it had when they’d initially entered it.

She doesn’t dare glance at Rio as she side-steps her chair, knowing that there’s sure to be a fiery layer of irritation swirling at his surface that she’s not ready to face yet. She plasters on a look of remorse as she levels her gaze with Mal’s again, using every shred of her self control to avoid glancing down at the gun in his hand.

“I’m so sorry, I have to step out and take this. I’ll just be a minute.”

The room falls silent as Beth turns her back on the two of them, already clicking into her recent call log to redial Annie’s number as she edges towards the door. 

Then, a soft _click._

Beth’s hand freezes on the doorknob. There’s a brief shuffle before she hears another _click,_ this one almost directly beside her. She swallows thickly, frozen to the spot, knowing the source of the sound all too well.

Rio is the first to speak up, his low drawl filling the small space like a dark melody.

“Put it down, man.”

Beth squeezes her eyes shut for a brief moment, summoning the courage to turn back around and face them, but it’s like she’s paralyzed from the neck down, her limbs refusing to cooperate with her brain.

“Turn around, _Elizabeth,”_ Mal grits out, something sinister wrapping around the syllables of her full name, the menacing timbre a startling contrast to the way it normally pours from Rio’s lips like warm honey.

Briefly, she wonders if she’d be able to turn the knob without him noticing, if she could flee the room before he landed a bullet in her, but she dismisses the idea just as quickly as it comes to her. Even if Rio could manage to get a shot off, she probably wouldn’t even make it past the threshold.

With no other option, she lowers her hand back to her side as she slowly spins to face the two men. As expected, the gun that Mal had been cradling against his thigh throughout the meeting is now aimed at her heart. He’s still settled casually on the edge of the desk while Rio has risen to his full height, his gun like an extension of himself, leveled at Mal’s head.

For a few suffocating beats of silence, none of them move—Mal’s gaze locked on Beth, Beth’s locked on Rio, and Rio’s locked on Mal. She curses herself for not having the foresight of bringing a weapon of her own, though deep down she knows she never would’ve been able to use it.

“I don’t know where your head’s at, but all you gon’ get from usin’ that is a lost deal and a whole lotta hell to pay,” Rio insists, and Beth can see his pointer finger twitch where it’s aligned with the barrel of his gun, itching to curl around the trigger. 

“Do you think I’m a fuckin’ idiot?” Mal spits out, his voice eerily calm despite the rigid tension in the room.

Rio’s lips curl into a malicious smirk as he replies, “Pretty much, yeah.”

There’s no way that Mal catches it, but after months of memorizing the cracks and divots in Rio’s façade, Beth can easily discern the rage simmering beneath the surface of it. She can hear the tension lining his words, previewing the unhinged part of him that he so seldom puts on display.

“I’m s'posed to believe that this white bitch from the ‘burbs is printin’ your cash?” Mal fires back, sounding more than slighted by the idea, and Beth bites her tongue on a rebuttal that will likely make things ten times worse.

“Yeah, see, we wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t, ‘cuz _she_ can do what you ’n’ me _can’t_.”

Beth can feel her eyes widen a fraction, in utter disbelief that Rio is coming to her defense. Something sharp tears through her chest, an unnamed emotion unfurling in the torn area, but she pushes it to the back of her mind to be dealt with later.

Mal bristles visibly, readjusting his grip on the handle of his gun when he catches Beth taking a step deeper into the room. Rio’s defensive stance doesn’t falter as Mal’s attention hones back in on Beth.

“Give it to me,” Mal barks, jerking his free hand out to her. Beth instinctively tightens her grip on her phone, clutching it harder against her stomach as she tries to catch Rio’s eye. It’s no use, though—his steely gaze is locked on Mal, regarding him with all the intensity of a hunter; a predator stalking its prey.

“Nah,” he states sharply, raising his voice enough that Beth nearly flinches at the sound of the single word ricocheting off the walls of the confined space. “She ain’t givin’ you jack.”

Mal’s gaze flits to Rio as he raises a thick brow, his fingers curling back into his empty palm as he slowly retracts it. Beth can tell that he’s rapidly losing control of his temper—not that Rio hasn’t lost his already, but he knows how to keep it under wraps, knows how to convince the opposing side that he holds all of the control. She thinks this might be the first instance where it’s working in her favor rather than being used to piss her off, but that’s a thought for a later time.

She can sense the way the tension in the air becomes taut, knows that something is going to give sooner rather than later—mostly, though, she knows that she’s the reason why this meeting has gone sideways and that she’s likely the only way they’re going to get out of here without any blood being spilled. After all, being underestimated has always been her most valuable asset. 

Before she can figure out her plan of action, though, Mal is shifting the aim of his gun, and it feels as though all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room when he points it at Rio.

“Y’know, I heard somethin’ interestin’ from one of my partners when he got word that we were meetin’. Said that there was a string of raids by the feds that went down when you were off the grid. I thought _I_ was paranoid before I heard that, but now I’m thinkin’ he wasn’t too far off,” Mal growls, baring his teeth as his lips curl around the syllables, and suddenly everything clicks into place.

Rio says nothing, his lips tensing into a thin line as he stares down the barrel of Mal’s pistol. Beth feels her heart beating in her throat, the blood pounding in her ears at a deafening rate, adrenaline singing in her veins, sparking like bolts of electricity at each nerve ending as she waits.

“Either we leave here or you don’t,” Rio drawls with a dangerous note of finality. “Your call.”

Beth swallows, the chorus of nerves in her gut reaching a crescendo as Mal’s lips twitch, his scowl deepening. Without thinking, she takes an imperceptible step towards Rio, her gaze fixed on the gun in Mal’s hand as he readjusts his grip. For one excruciating beat of silence, no one moves, and she thinks that they might still have a chance of making it out of this unscathed. 

Then Mal’s finger is curling around the trigger and Beth’s mind goes blank, her limbs moving of their own accord as her instincts propel her forwards. Her shoulder collides with Rio’s, the deafening echo of a gunshot shattering across the room for a brief moment before everything goes dark.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all _so much_ for all the love on the last part, and for your patience on this update. this story has turned out to be much longer than i'd originally planned, so there will be one more chapter after this one. enjoy!

For all the nightmares Beth's mind had conjured up in the weeks following Rio's return, she'd never envisioned herself being shot by a man that wasn't him.

If she had, however, she's very certain that such a scene would've included some sadistic display of satisfaction on his part—one where he assured her that she got what she deserved, that he was delighted to be able to witness it, that she wasn’t his problem anymore—right before he left her to bleed out, just as she’d done to him.

So it’s safe to say that she’s more than a little disoriented when she comes to, the dull light of the office flooding her retinas only a moment before the deep murmur of his voice registers in her hazy mind.

“There she is. Keep them eyes open for me, yeah?”

Despite how heavy her eyelids feel, Beth strains to do as Rio asks, blinking rapidly as his looming form fills her field of vision. She has hardly any time to marvel at how beautiful he is up close, something that she’d noted on more than one occasion when things were still good between them. Before she’d shut him out, pushed him away, and left him for dead in a matter of weeks.

Beth stalls that train of thought almost as soon as it forms because this is _really_ not the time.

As if on cue, her brain finally renders her physical state—more specifically, the searing thread of pain that spans from her left knee to the bottom of her ribcage—along with the sensation of Rio’s steady hands applying an ample amount of pressure to her left hip. The pain that radiates from it is _excruciating_ , unlike anything she's ever experienced before and the only sensation that's ever come close to rivaling childbirth.

Without thinking, Beth attempts to sit up on one elbow, distantly registering the rough texture of the concrete floor beneath her before a white hot spike of pain shoots up her side.

A hoarse cry tears from her throat as she drops back onto the concrete and squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them again, she finds Rio’s dark gaze roaming over her features, his shoulders hunched and spine arched as he hovers over the left half of her body.

She makes the mistake of glancing around the room, startling and sucking in a frantic breath when her gaze catches on the body lying a few feet behind him, motionless and pallid.

“What happened?” She breathes, voice high-pitched and unsteady as she feels the first wave of panic form in her chest.

She carefully props herself up again with just her right elbow, straining to steal a glance at where Rio is applying relentless pressure before she sees him shake his head.

“Eyes on me, mama,” he instructs firmly, but it’s too late—her gaze has already fixated on where his broad hands are spread out over her hip, pressing a bundle of black fabric against her side as blood steadily seeps through it and stains his golden skin crimson.

A staggering wave of nausea washes over her at the sight, and she considers restating her question despite knowing that he heard her when he speaks again, his jaw rocking as his eyes fix back on where he’s applying pressure.

“Dumb fucker got a shot off. It ain’t hit nothin’ vital but I can’t fix you up here,” Rio tells her, and she’s relieved to find that, for once, the anger in his voice isn’t targeted at her. There’s another emotion mixed in with it that sounds oddly close to fear, and the realization of it settles in her gut and sinks like a heavy stone. She’s not used to seeing it on him, let alone hearing it in his voice, and she finds that she hates it.

Beth wrangles with her racing thoughts, attempting to pick and choose which questions to ask and which to save for later before Rio shifts above her, one of his hands leaving her hip to grab one of hers. She resists the urge to flinch away from his touch when she feels her blood pass from his fingers to her own, raising her gaze to meet his as he places her hand beside the one he still has pressed to her hip.

“Keep the pressure, yeah?”

It’s like her brain is dragging itself through a thick layer of mud as she processes the instruction, the loss of blood making everything look and feel hazy around the edges. She takes her a couple beats before she’s able to manage a feeble nod in his direction, and she tries to replicate the pressure his left hand is maintaining as she watches him whip out his cell.

“What are you doing?” Beth asks, barely managing to suppress a whimper as she presses the cloth harder against her hip. Rio’s eyes are glued to the screen as he taps away at it with his thumb.

“Gettin’ us outta here.”

And right, she thinks, sucking in a sharp breath as pain sparks beneath her fingertips. It’s constant, ebbing and flowing from the bottom of her leg to the top of her abdomen, throbbing like a second heartbeat. Her empty hand balls into a fist, itching for something to grab onto and finding nothing but hard concrete beneath it.

For a handful of minutes, the only sounds circulating throughout the room are Beth’s labored breaths and Rio’s measured ones. The silence practically hums with an invisible line of tension, pulling tauter with each passing minute until he’s cursing softly under his breath, shoving his phone back into the pocket of his jeans and lifting the cloth away to check beneath it.

Her heart constricts in her chest when he curses again, a bit harsher this time, but she swallows her nerves because she has to know.

“Is it still…” She asks, trailing off with a pointed glance down at her hip.

Rio’s gaze flits to hers as he scrubs a hand over the bottom half of his face, his expression bordering on frantic, and she can see the exact moment when her question clicks in his mind, when he realizes she isn’t talking about the bleeding. His furrowed brows smooth out as he expels a sharp breath.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t offer any sort of reassurance because, really, there’s no way to make this situation less than what it is, and she feels her heart slam against her ribcage as she struggles to regulate her breathing. She briefly considers cracking a joke about having another bullet to add to his collection, but even in her wavering state of consciousness she realizes that, given his spiteful tendencies, it’s probably not the wisest decision. For all she knows, he could just up and leave her here, bleeding out on the floor like she did to him all those months ago just to prove a point.

A manic bout of laughter bubbles in her chest at the thought, escaping her lips unwittingly as her eyes drift shut. She can feel Rio’s eyes on her as he shifts above her—she practically has a sixth sense for it at this point—but she doesn’t bother opening her own, even when he speaks up, his voice low and strained.

“Think you can walk?”

She nearly winces at the thought but manages to cover it up with a bemused huff of laughter. “Do I have a choice?”

She doesn’t know exactly what she expects—maybe a dry comment or biting response, something that’ll make her take him seriously—but it’s definitely not the a stretch of unnerving silence that follows her words like a shadow.

It isn’t long before the sole sound of their combined breathing becomes deafening to her ears, and when she finally peels her heavy eyelids back open, there’s a dark edge to his gaze that cuts deeper than any string of words he could’ve thrown at her.

He doesn’t have to respond to her question—his answer is loud and clear.

She begins to push herself up onto both of her elbows, steeling herself against the throbbing in her hip as she does so when Rio gently presses a palm to her shoulder, stilling her. She casts him a confused glance (well, she _thinks_ she does—it’s hard to be certain when the fog clouding her brain seems to thicken by the minute).

“Gotta stop the bleedin’ first.” 

As soon as he gets the words out, his gaze leaves hers to make a quick sweep of the room. He straightens up a moment later, his hand leaving her hip as he steps over her legs and strides towards the desk Mal had been seated against for the majority of their meeting. She does her best to keep the pressure on her wound as he rifles through a few drawers, her heart skipping a beat when she feels the piece of fabric notably dampen beneath the palm of her hand.

With a quick glance down at her hip, she can see that the fabric—which she realizes must be Rio’s undershirt when her gaze snags on the white tag at the hem—is well and truly soaked with her blood now.

Rio circles back around the desk a moment later, a pen clutched in his hand as he settles back beside her on the floor. He sets it down beside her before carefully reaching out to pry his blood-soaked shirt from her shaky hands. He sets that on the ground as well before he pauses, sucking in a breath as his eyes zero back in on her hip. 

She can tell he’s working something out in his head, calculating the best approach to whatever it is he’s doing, and it takes him no more than a few seconds to find it before he’s reaching a hand into the pocket of his bomber jacket and pulling out his car keys. Her lips part wordlessly as she watches his nimble fingers slide the car fob off of the keyring, confusion flooding through her as she observes his movements. He picks up the shirt from beside her, slides the keyring towards the middle of it, and begins to wrap it around the top of her left thigh without so much as an explanation or warning.

She flinches back, her leg twitching involuntarily as he ties the shirt off and tightens it to the point of pain. He gives the knot an extra tug, testing that it’s taut before finally glancing up at her, and when he does, his eyes roam over her features with a mix of concentration and concern that she doesn’t think she’s ever seen on him.

She’s too lightheaded to make much sense of it and the moment passes quickly, his attention refocusing on her leg as he grabs the pen up off the ground and positions it against the knot. His other hand comes up as he grabs both ends of the shirt and secures the pen in place with a second knot. He goes through the motions of it all almost mechanically, and as she watches him, she wonders just how many times he’s had to patch other people up—how often he’s felt the burden of holding someone’s life in his hands.

The thought offers a brief reprieve from the pain, but it’s woefully short-lived. Without faltering or providing so much as a warning, he twists the pen around until it’s horizontal and resting against the shirt.

A pained groan tumbles from her lips as the shirt cuts off her circulation, and Rio’s eyes dart to her face before he drops a hand to her knee, his fingers curling around the back of it and pressing into her flesh. She sucks in a breath, her brows furrowing as his fingertips prod insistently at her leg through the denim of her jeans, and she barely resists the urge to squirm away from the sensation before she realizes that he’s searching for a pulse.

The air between them is thick with growing tension as he presses a bit harder, the sound of their breaths the only thing to be heard as the silence stretches on between them. He nods to himself a few moments later, evidently pleased with the effectiveness of his makeshift tourniquet.

She expects him to pull away, finds herself praying that he will so that she can get a hold of herself, only then his gaze is sliding down her body and fixating on where his hand still grips the back of her knee. Her breath catches as she studies his features, her eyes tracing over the furrowed line of his thick brows and the twist of his full lips as he stares, enraptured, at the sight of his hand on her. She would’ve thought it impossible for the tension between them to grow any thicker, but the space between them practically thrums with unspoken words, bittersweet memories, and unfinished business. Briefly, blissfully, she finds the pain in her hip dulling until it’s no more than an afterthought as the heat of Rio’s palm seeps through her jeans, his gaze burning through her with just as much intensity as he reduces her to ashes beneath him.

The moment is shattered by the trill of Beth’s phone, the sound entirely too loud in the small bubble that’s formed around them. She watches in a daze as Rio blinks a few times before he retracts his hand, shaking his head to himself as if he’s caught himself doing something he shouldn’t be.

Beth clears her dry throat and tears her gaze from him as she fumbles with her coat for her phone. Distantly, she realizes that it’s not going to be there, that she’d been holding it when she—— when she was _shot,_ and she’s briefly distracted by that thought—the reality of what’s happened settling over her skin and sinking into her pores like acid.

She’s saved from confronting these thoughts when, virtually out of nowhere, Rio presents her phone to her like some sort of peace offering. She accepts it gratefully, managing to grace him with a purse of her lips that she hopes somewhat resembles a smile before she glances at the screen.

Annie’s number blears back up at her, the photo of her grinning face tugging abruptly and sharply at Beth’s heart. Her finger hovers over the green button, itching to accept the call, but she hesitates, glancing up at Rio in question, unsure of what she’s allowed to divulge—if she’s even allowed to answer at all.

He merely nods at the screen, though, his dark eyes roaming over her features as he says, “Make it quick, yeah?”

She nods back at him, shocked by his willing concurrence. Then again, she thinks, _he_ _gets_ _it_ —he’s a parent, too.

The call with Annie is brief, the bulk of it consisting of Annie talking Beth’s ear off at increasingly higher octaves until she catches a trace of something in Beth’s tone that gives her pause. Beth explains it away with relative ease (if it had been Ruby, it’d be a different story), telling her that the meeting ran longer than expected, that it’s not safe to pass through the border check this late at night without rousing suspicion. Annie buys the excuse, though there’s a lilt to her voice that would suggest otherwise, but she drops the subject when Beth asks for an update on Danny’s condition.

Annie assures her that Danny seems better since she’d first called—he’d refused to eat his dinner after Beth had left, finally admitting that something was wrong an hour later when Annie had pointed out that he was looking a little green—and that she’d set the rest of the kids up with a movie in the living room, managing to divert their attention from their brother while she’d spooned him some medicine and tucked him into bed.

Their phone call lasts all of five minutes (which is really a feat in itself, given that Beth has never been able to get off of the phone with Annie before hitting the ten minute mark) and by the time she hangs up, a significant amount of weight has been lifted from her chest. Rio had left her alone when she’d first picked up, standing just outside the doorway as he’d made some calls of his own, and she doesn’t get the chance to ask what their next move is before Mick is materializing in the doorway.

Rio ducks his head towards him, muttering what Beth assumes is a set of instructions in a tone that’s too quiet for her to make out. Mick nods, curt and sharp, before he’s stepping around Rio, striding towards the body she’d previously noticed lying behind him. He doesn’t grant Beth so much as a glance, his posture rigid and his expression blank as he carries out his orders, and she finds herself oddly relieved that for once, they don’t concern her.

When she shifts her gaze back to him, Rio is rounding her, coming to settle on her right side. There’s a question in his eyes as he worries his bottom lip between his teeth, and a few beats of silence pass before he speaks.

“Think you can make it to the car?”

Beth glances down at her leg, studying it with a strange sort of disconnection, like it’s someone else’s leg, someone else’s pain to bear. She’s gotten good at that in recent months—deflecting her mistakes as though they’re someone else’s burden to carry.

When she shifts her gaze back to Rio, seeking out the familiarity of his dark eyes and sharp features, she realizes that there are some feelings she can’t escape.

So she swallows, props herself up, meets his gaze, and nods once.

Something flashes across his expression, then, passing as quick as it appears. She swears there’s a hint of a fondness in it, maybe a slight upturn at the corner of his lips, but she thinks it’s more likely that her brain is playing tricks on her given how much blood she’s lost.

He bends down so that his shoulders are level with hers, weaving his arm past her own and wrapping it around her waist. His fingers press firmly against her ribs through the fabric of her sweater, and she braces her palms against the cool concrete, barely suppressing a shiver as he pulls her to him. Despite herself, she leans into him, allowing him to bear her weight as she rises to her feet and wobbles a bit, her stance unsteady. The arm around her waist tightens as her right hand grasps as his shoulder, the other one splaying across his chest, pressing just below his collarbone as she attempts to steady herself.

They remain dutifully silent as they maneuver their way out of the office, leaving Mick to what Beth assumes is the cleanup job. The trip down the staircase is the most difficult part, given that the pain in her hip borders on unbearable each time she puts even an ounce of weight on it, but it’s smooth sailing in comparison when they make it out onto the gravel lot. She concentrates on keeping her weight on her right leg instead of the way Rio’s arm feels around her waist, its presence warm and grounding and secure as he holds her balance.

She’s more than a bit woozy by the time they make it to his car, and she pointedly ignores the tiny stars dancing at the corners of her vision as she tumbles into the passenger seat. He doesn’t draw his arm back from her waist until he’s sure she’s not going to spill back out onto the concrete, and she has to swallow the lump of affection that rises in her throat, refusing to read into his actions when her state is already far too vulnerable for her liking.

After he has her seatbelt fastened, he reaches his right arm across her torso until his palm is resting against her side. She wants to question him but doubts that he’ll even answer, her energy far too depleted for her to willingly waste it on deaf ears. He slides his hand down her side until it’s resting against her hip, and her slow brain realizes his intention just as he curses under his breath. Her brows furrow as her gaze rakes over his features and she knows that she’s staring, but she can’t seem to make the rest of her body cooperate with her mind in this state. His brows are pinched as well, his lips worrying into a tense line as he stares at her lap, and she thinks her eyelids droop a bit as her gaze follows his own to where his hand hovers above her. Even with only the dim glow of the moon, she can tell that his golden skin has been painted a vivid shade of crimson.

Beth remains silent as he disappears around the back of the car, unsure of what would spill from her lips if she tried to speak. Vaguely, she registers the way her previously erratic heartbeat has slowed to a dull roar in her chest. She tunes into the short, ragged breaths that spill from her lips—how they resemble the dying breaths of a wounded animal, like the ones she’s seen on National Geographic with the kids just before switching the channel. The feeling is similar to intoxication as she blinks, her eyelids like small stones sewn into her skin, her vision like a camera lens that someone has scaled down the clarity on as the scene around her blurs slightly.

She blinks for a second and Rio is back at her side the next, holding a hunk of balled-up fabric in one of his fists. She stares at him dumbly as he unfurls it over her lap, and though it’s difficult to make out its form in the dark, she realizes that he must’ve grabbed one of his hoodies from the back. He situates the bulk of the fabric on her left hip before he eases her away from the seat, guiding one of the sleeves around her back and bringing it to meet the other at her right hip. He ties the wrists of it as tight as he can, sliding two fingers between the makeshift bandage and her body to ensure that it’ll hold before he steps away, taking the warmth of his body with him.

Beth lets her head thump back against the headrest as Rio shuts the door, trying to concentrate on getting enough oxygen to her lungs so that she doesn’t pass out in his car. She hears the driver’s side door click open and allows her eyes to drift shut, convinced that if she looks over at his face in her current state, she won’t have the will to look away.

He starts the car as soon as he’s strapped in, and she feels his gaze on her as he hastily reverses out of the lot, feels it as he pulls out onto the main road, but she refuses to meet it.

Then, in a low rasp, he murmurs, “Don’t pass out on me, Elizabeth.”

By some stroke of luck, she manages a half-nod, her back of her head brushing against the cool leather of the headrest. She doesn’t reply but does as he asks, clinging to the last scrap of consciousness as he drives them further from the warehouse—after all, he _did_ let her sleep on the way there.

For some block of time that Beth couldn’t possibly discern, the gentle roar of the engine is the only noise to be heard in the confined space of the car, filling her ears like white noise. Her attention hones in on it for the entirety of the car ride, and she finds herself incredibly grateful to have something concrete to focus on besides the blinding pain constantly ebbing from her hip.

She doesn’t bother opening her eyes when she feels them turn right or when they slow to a crawl shortly after. She’s not entirely sure how she’s managed to stay awake by the time they come to a stop, but she doesn’t linger on the thought for long when she hears the driver’s side door click open, then shut again.

The passenger side door clicks open a moment later, and Beth chooses what may possibly be the worst time to blink her eyes open, not realizing her mistake until she’s staring into Rio’s dark eyes head-on, his face less than a foot from hers as he leans in close. The sound of her breath catching fills the small space between them like the drop of a pin, but her brain can’t catch up with the situation soon enough to grant her any due embarrassment. As it is, she can’t seem to tear her eyes from his face as they dip to trace the scruff above his upper lip and along the harsh line of his jaw. She drinks in the curve of his soft lips, unfazed by the fact that she’s obviously staring, trying to debate in her hazy state whether or not he’d push her away if she bridged the gap between them and pressed her lips to his.

 _God_ , she misses the taste of him.

He pulls away then, taking her seatbelt with him, and she does her best to stifle the disappointment that flickers in her chest at the loss of his nearness. Through half-lidded eyes, she peers up at his clenched jaw and the firm set to his lips, making a vain effort to decipher the conflicted twist to his torrid gaze.

If he’s at all affected by her obvious staring, he makes no comment about it. Instead, he braces his forearm against the roof of the car, effectively caging her in, as his gaze sweeps down her body and settles on her left leg.

“Think you can manage a flight o’ stairs, mama?” Rio drawls, and right, Beth thinks, her gaze finally shifting from him to take in the two-story building in front of them—there’s still a bullet lodged in her hip.

She nods, albeit reluctantly, before he once again circles his arm around her waist, and she’s grateful for the support as she staggers onto the concrete beside him. Pain shoots through her left leg as she mistakenly shifts her weight onto it and she flails an arm out, blindly seeking purchase as her muscles briefly seize. She ends up grabbing onto Rio’s shoulder, clutching it weakly like it’s her lifeline, and she hears Rio huff out a breath beside her before he takes ahold of her right arm and guides it around his neck. Although she’s sure her face is still contorted with pain, she purses her lips into something resembling a smile as she shoots him an appreciative glance and further leans into his solid form.

Their combined movements are clunky and uncoordinated, but they manage to make it inside the building and up the spiral staircase without incident. From what little focus she’s able to spare from the task of keeping herself upright, Beth notes that they’re in a café of sorts—the complex machinery and surplus of coffee beans is more than implicative of it, but there’s the addition of a small stage area that suggests several other uses for the space. It offers a decent distraction—the thought of whether it’s used for live music, open mic nights, or some other sponsored event that may be held here—and she’s once again grateful for any sort of reprieve from the unbearable thread of pain that’s persistently creeping up her side.

She clutches to Rio with all the strength she can muster as they approach the foot of the metal staircase. As though he can sense her unease (which isn’t unlikely, given his affinity for reading people like they’re picture books), he tightens his hold on her waist while brushing his free hand over the one that still clutches at his shoulder. He circles his long fingers around her wrist and tugs lightly, securing her body to his in order to hold more of her weight, and Beth tries to focus on planting one foot in front of the other rather than the way the heat from his palm seeps through her sweater as he firms his grip on her.

The trip up the staircase is certainly the most testing part of the journey. The throbbing in Beth’s leg is amplified by her every move, and she’s forced to bear the majority of her weight against Rio’s side when the staccato of pain transitions into a constant thrum. She can feel sweat begin to pool at the nape of her neck as drowsiness begins to seep into her muscles, rolling over her in waves like a thick, impairing fog. She thinks she hears Rio utter something to her, his ears brushing the shell of her ear as they approach the staircase landing, but it’s captured and buried beneath the depths of her haze-ridden mind.

The second level of the café leaves much to be desired in comparison to the first. Much like the rest of the building, it’s characterized by exposed metal pipes, a high ceiling, and scuffed hardwood flooring. From the top of the staircase, there’s about eight feet worth of hallway leading up to a lone wooden door at the opposite end.

As Rio shifts his hold on her to retrieve a keyring from the pocket of his jacket, Beth realizes that she hasn’t even attempted to question where they are or where he’s taking her. She’s well aware that she couldn’t’ve possibly gotten herself out of that situation alone in her current condition, that she had no other option but to rely on him if she wanted to live through the night, that he hasn’t really posed a threat to her in a number of months, but it still unnerves her—how instinctive it was for her to trust him with her life. She can’t explain it—not now, maybe not ever—but she’s just as sure of it as she was when she’d stolen his pills and he’d retaliated with a gun tucked beneath her chin: he’s not going to hurt her.

There’s the click of a lock giving and the creak of a latch opening before he’s guiding her through the door, his hand returning to the one she’s got clutched around her shoulder as he kicks the door shut with his foot.

Beth drinks in the space in front of her with a dull gaze, noting the way the moonlight spills from the full-scale windows to her left, bathing the few pieces of furniture that occupy the space in a pale, otherworldly glow. Her gaze roams from one area to the other as Rio pauses beside the door, and she can just barely make out the shape of a bed in the far corner, faced towards the door, just beyond the compact kitchen area off to the right. Directly across from it, there’s a walled-off area—a bathroom, if she were to guess. To the left, a living area occupies the rest of the loft, not an inch of it untouched by the light that streams through windows. There’s a leather couch facing the wall and a simplistic wooden desk pushed up against it; save for the bed on the far wall, though, there’s no other furniture in sight.

Behind her, she hears the flick of a switch as the warm hue of artificial lighting floods the room. Much like the lower level of the building, most of the standard furnishing pieces, like the single-bulb lighting fixtures and mounted metal shelves, tie into the industrial, modest design. She starts to gravitate towards the couch, every inch of her body begging for a chance to rest, but a warm hand splays across her lower back and guides her towards the kitchen before she’s able to do so. She offers no resistance to it as she reflexively raises a hand to his shoulder, establishing some sense of balance before hobbling towards one of the stools that line the island counter.

Rio pulls it out for her with the hand not resting against her and Beth regards him gratefully, sending him a shy smile as she settles into it. Up until now, he’d kept his face carefully impassive, going through the motions of assisting her with a sort of detached efficiency. Now, though, he graces her with a slight curl of his lips, his touch lingering on her back a moment longer as his fingers fiddle with the thin material of her sweater. He smooths out the wrinkle with the palm of his hand before he finally pulls away, and Beth finds herself breathless once again for reasons that are entirely unrelated to the locus of pain blazing in her hip.

He steps back from her, but he doesn’t go far. He reaches for her left leg, cupping the back of her knee as he drags another stool up next to her before lifting her leg up onto it. She resists the urge to shiver when he fingertips brush over a ticklish spot at back of her knee, and she catches the subtle curve of his lips as he’s pulling away. He doesn’t comment on it, and for the first time in what feels like hours, she’s acutely aware of the silence stretching between them as he rounds the counter and begins rifling through a cupboard.

“What is this place?” Beth asks, her voice hoarse and raspy from disuse. She figures it’s a relative long shot that he’ll answer her honestly, if at all, so it’s a pleasant surprise when Rio rises from behind the counter, med kit in hand, and the words spill easily from his lips.

“An old associate of mine owns the buildin’. I gave him some cash to get it up ’n’ runnin’ a few years back, so the loft’s mine to use when I’m checkin’ in on shit over here,” he explains as he places the med kit on the counter and begins to rummage through it. Beth’s gaze fixates on his hands as he places the supplies he needs on the counter beside him, and despite her attempts to remain impassive, she can’t help but suck in a breath when he sets down a suture kit beside a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

He clearly hears it because he shoots her a cursory glance a second later, his dark eyes roaming over her features as she scrambles to reclaim her composure. He says nothing about her reaction—no spiteful quirk of his lips or semblance of laughter at her apprehension—and she’s once again surprised when an emotion bordering on benignant flashes across his face. His gaze flits back down to the kit once he’s done regarding her, and the stoic mask she’s grown so familiar with is slipped back into place as he continues sorting through the items in front of him.

Her eyes catch on a small pouch containing a handful of nondescript prescription pills, and the question spills from her mouth before she can stop it.

“Are you going to take it out?”

Rio’s eyes flick back up to hers, but his hands don’t stall in their sorting when he responds.

“Depends. Gotta check how deep it went and how close it is to the bone.”

Beth nods slowly, processing this new information with a welcome surge of relief, because she thought for certain that leaving the bullet in place would be out of the question.

The relief doesn’t last for long, though, a new realization hitting her square in the chest, nearly knocking the wind out of her as she remembers— _lung, spleen, shoulder._

The memory of that night—of the morbid reality she’d created and he’d forced her to finally confront—causes that same sharp sensation from earlier to rip through her chest, leaving her breathless and aching. She can’t help but tear her eyes away from him as an abrupt wave of misery floods through her, and if Rio notices the blunt shift in her demeanor, he makes no effort to acknowledge it.

“You take Oxy before?” He asks, briefly distracting her from her thoughts, and after brief consideration, she shakes her head.

“They put me on Morphine when I was in labor with my first,” she replies, grateful to have something else to focus on besides their dark past, but the memory of how painful her labor with Kenny had been doesn’t make her feel much better.

“This is stronger than that. If we gotta remove it, you gon’ need somethin’ for the pain.”

Beth starts to shake her head without thinking much of it, a rebuttal rising on her tongue about how she went through labor three times without an epidural (after Judith had insisted that since she was able to get through twelve hours of labor without it when she had Dean, it wasn’t necessary for her second or third births), but Rio cuts her off before she can get the words out.

“Unless you got history with addiction, this ain’t up for debate. Won’t have you passin’ out on me,” he states firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument. Beth shuts her mouth in resignation, knowing she doesn’t have nearly enough energy to fight him on it—after all, she can admit that fainting while he digs a bullet out of her wouldn’t exactly be ideal—and she watches as he closes the lid on the med kit, surveying the supplies he’s laid out to ensure he has everything he needs.

He gathers everything up and slides all of it over to her side of the island before rounding it himself, and she shifts a bit in her seat as he nears her.

He jerks his chin over his left shoulder, gesturing in the direction of the bathroom when he says, “Gotta clean you up first.”

Beth nods easily—the memory of her bloodied hip beneath the dim lighting of the warehouse still fresh in her mind—and takes a fortifying breath as she braces an arm against the counter.

Rio is at her side before she even registers he’s moving, securing his arm around her waist as she wobbles into an upright stance, and she curses herself when the return of his warmth steals her breath all over again. If he notices, he chooses not to acknowledge it, his expression remaining stoic and unreadable as she staggers towards the bathroom, and the stars that begin to dot the edges of her vision die down once he eases her onto the edge of the bathtub.

There’s not much to the bathroom, though it shows more signs of being lived-in than the rest of the apartment does. The sink and toilet rest against the same wall as the bath faucet and a shaggy grey rug covers the majority of the tile floor in front of them. A towel in a matching shade of grey hangs from a silver hook positioned between the sink and toilet, and as soon as Beth’s eyes leave it, they catch on the extra first aid kit that’s been stowed beneath the sink beside a black toiletry bag. Briefly, she wonders if he’s ever had to use it. She wonders how many people he’s had to patch up here, like he is with her now—wonders how many nights he’d dragged himself here after a meeting that went sideways, suffering through this same excruciating level of pain alone.

Her attention snags on that thought, the discomfort of it growing sharper with each attempt she makes to free it. Then, it’s instantaneous—the way she clings desperately to each fleeting thought she catches, running intervention on her mind before it can conjure up the memories of that awful night.

It doesn’t work.

She knows it doesn’t work—not because her breathing picks up until she’s nearly hyperventilating and there’s a muffled, high-pitched ring echoing in her ears, but because she blinks and she sees Rio running a cloth under the tap, and she blinks and she sees him cocking the hammer of his gun.

It’s because she glances up at him when he offers her the cloth and when she glances back down, his fingers are curled around the gold barrel.

It’s because she blinks and he’s talking, his lips curling around some string of words she can’t make out, and she blinks and he’s choking, blood pouring endlessly from his mouth like a crimson waterfall.

“Elizabeth.”

She’s jerked back to the present at the sound of Rio’s low drawl, her eyes springing open to find him seated beside her on the edge of the tub. She’s unable to recall when she’d even closed them.

Her lips part without a sound as she takes him in, and in her effort to commit to memory the sight of him beside her—living, breathing, _safe—_ she doesn’t register that he's waiting on her for a response.

After a beat of silence that she makes no attempt to fill, he breathes out a soft sigh as his eyes drag over her form, and she doesn’t think he’s ever looked as old to her as he does now, the fine lines on his face standing out like a record of every sleepless night he’s ever had.

“Gotta take your jeans off,” he says, his tone possessing a remarkable amount of patience for his usual standard.

Beth glances down at her legs dumbly before looking back at Rio. It comes as no surprise to her that his expression leaves no room for argument, and she swallows the bile that rises in her throat before nodding slowly in reply. She knows that he can’t properly clean the area around the wound without doing so, but that doesn’t make the thought of it any less off-putting.

After a brief internal debate, she lowers both her hands to the front of her jeans and pops the button open with trembling fingers. She can feel Rio’s eyes on her as they track the action, but she feigns ignorance for the sake of her own sanity.

She curls her fingers around the waistband and begins to slide them down her hips, but she barely gets them down more than an inch before an excruciating bolt of pain shoots up her left leg. Her hands stall immediately as a high-pitched whine slips past her lips, but she grits her teeth and pushes on when she hears Rio’s lips part, finding herself oddly opposed to hearing whatever comment he’d been ready to share.

It takes her all of ten seconds to get the denim past her hip, but the intensity of the pain that radiates from it seems to increase by the millisecond. She’s fairly certain she’s cracked one of her back molars when the waistband hits the makeshift tourniquet still hugging her upper thigh, and she finally allows herself to glance over at Rio when she realizes she doesn’t know how to undo it.

His eyes scan her face for a moment before he nods, easily seeing the reluctant plea in the set of her features, and she thinks this might be one of the only times she can say that she’s grateful for his ineffable ability to read her.

She watches in slight fascination as his nimble fingers swiftly undo the first knot in the t-shirt to loosen the pen, then the second to unravel the rest of the material from her leg. Once she’s free of the tourniquet, his gaze briefly flits to hers, a question passing over his expression as his fingers curl around the waistband of her jeans. She swallows her embarrassment and gives him the go-ahead, her knuckles turning white as she grips the edge of the bathtub and her cheeks flushing crimson as he rakes his gaze over the pale skin he’s revealing. His actions are steady and sure in a way that hers weren’t, that she doesn’t think they’ve ever been, and she wonders, briefly, how someone capable of so many sinister acts can possess such grace—how the same hands that have repeatedly held her own have also drawn blood, broken limbs, and ended lives for much longer than she’s been around to witness it.

Sitting beside him in a vacant loft an hour outside the U.S. border should be the last place on Earth she’d willingly find herself and yet, somehow, despite her reluctance to accept it, she knows. Knows that they’re tied together; that they can’t trust each other, but they can trust _this—_ the solidarity that rears its head once in a blue moon, gradually constructing a battered, makeshift bridge from the crumbled remains of what once was; of what could’ve been.

“You good, ma?” A rumbling voice asks, breaking through the thoughts crowding her mind, and almost as if on cue, she hears it—the clemency that bleeds into his words, and she can’t help but stare when her tired eyes meet his hooded ones. His dark gaze has always had the allure of a siren’s song when directed at her.

When she finally processes his words, though, she can’t help but snort, and she gestures loosely to her left side as she rasps out, “What do you think?”

She can read the answering smirk Rio attempts to stifle in the subtle quirk of his lips. The rest of his expression throws her for a bit of a loop—if she didn’t know any better, she’d say he almost looks relieved—but he huffs out a laugh, crouching beside her in front of the tub and fixing his gaze back on her hip before she can make much of it.

He splays his right hand against the skin of her waist, then, and although the contact is featherlight and clinical, it has her sucking in a sharp breath as the warmth of his palm seeps across her bare skin. His touch firms slightly when he feels her tense beneath it, but there’s no other way to tell he’s sensed the shift in her demeanor as he studies her bullet wound. He shifts his head a few times to observe it from different angles beneath the poor lighting of the bathroom, the concentrated furrow of his brows and pout of his lower lip causing heat to coil low in her belly.

It’s only once Rio pulls away to grab the washcloth off of the toilet seat that Beth realizes she’s been holding her breath, and heat floods her cheeks when the air audibly rushes from her lungs.

His reaction is a lot more subtle than his ego normally allows—a quirk of his lips that he attempts to cover by shifting back towards the faucet and re-wetting the cloth beneath it—and she’s momentarily thrown by his civility, woefully unused to being spared his usual mockery and deception. In a way, she’d led herself to believe she deserved his malice—it made it easier to accept the fact that her life was more or less in his hands, that he could make cuts far deeper than those he’d carved with his words. Without it, she feels stranded in the vast ocean of grey they’ve been treading in since his return, clinging to him like a buoy that could capsize with the slightest tremor.

Rio meets her gaze once he’s done with the faucet, the silence in the room suddenly deafening as his dark eyes skim over her features. It can’t be more than half a minute before his voice is cutting through the silence, but each passing second feels like an eternity as Beth fights the urge to fidget beneath his solemn scrutiny.

“I’ll try and make it quick, but this is gonna sting,” he warns her, his tone not quite apologetic, but not _not_ apologetic, either, and it’s immediate, the way the sound seeps past her ribcage and burrows into her heart.

She lowers her gaze to the cloth in his hand as she nods, unable to hold his own when his expression is so attentive, so gentle—far more gentle than she deserves after all she’s done to him—and immerses herself in the steady motion of his hand as he cleans her up.

He was right, of course—it does sting, but it’s by no means the worse pain she’s experienced, given that the past two hours have widened the brackets on her pain scale drastically. Beth knows that pain isn’t analogous, of course—has endured a full day’s worth of labor, contractions, and childbirth in her lifetime and still lets out a string of expletives when she burns her hand on the stove—so despite the fact that she’s been stitched up just a few inches from where Rio’s hands are currently settled, she can’t bury the seed of anxiety that sprouts in her chest at the thought of what’s to come.

It takes five, maybe ten minutes for Rio to finish cleaning out the bullet wound. It’s not that there’s an excess amount of debris like she’d been expecting, given that the bullet tore through two layers of fairly thick clothing, but there’s still a few thin trickles of blood trailing down her thigh every time he swipes at it with the washcloth. It’s enough to elicit a huff of frustration from him, his brow furrowing as he undergoes some internal debate. He quickly concedes, rising up from his haunches and settling back onto the side of the tub next to her.

He rinses and wrings out the cloth one last time beneath the faucet before pressing it firmly to her hip, and Beth startles a bit when she feels a warm, calloused hand engulf one of her own. She blinks over at him, attempting to reign in her attention from where it’d wandered as he cleaned her up, and she’s unsurprised to find his eyes roaming over her face thoughtfully, drinking in every feature as though he hasn’t already done so a dozen times over tonight.

“Hold the pressure, yeah?” He instructs her, guiding her hand in his so that it’s pressing against the cloth before he slips his other hand out from beneath hers. “Still gotta stitch you up since the bleedin’ ain’t slowin’, but the bullet’s too deep to take out.”

She swallows thickly and does as she’s told, firming her hold on her hip until it’s a ghost of his touch.

“Will it——can you do that? Just leave it in?” Beth asks, her voice small and hoarse. She hates how weak it sounds; she hardly recognizes it.

Much to her surprise, Rio’s patience doesn’t waiver at the question. He nods in reply before he rocks to his feet, offering her hand and gesturing towards the kitchen with a jerk of his head.

When she doesn’t immediately take his hand, he quirks an eyebrow at her, a challenge swirling in his dark gaze as he regards her thoughtfully. She can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that makes her hesitate—maybe it’s the anticipation of what’s to come once she leaves this room, or the fact that her dark blue panties are the only thing covering her bottom half. Maybe it’s the jarring realization that she’s practically handed her life over to Rio without a second thought—that they haven’t trusted each other for months now, maybe even longer than that, and yet here she is, relying on him to fix her up, to heal her, to keep her _safe_ —but she pushes it to the back of her mind, just as she’s done more times than she can count when it comes to him, and places her unsteady hand in his.

And maybe the act of it isn’t all that symbolic from an outside perspective, but in the few inches of space that are left between them, the feel of his broad palm enveloping her own holds its own connotations, and the thread of her doubt slips from her fingers as he gently pulls her to her feet.

The murky waters of her thoughts had allowed Beth to momentarily neglect the stabbing pain in her hip, but by the time they reach the kitchen and Rio gets her settled on one of the chairs lining the island, it’s all she can do to not clutch at her open wound as pitiful whimpers slip from her parted lips. She screws her eyes shut and presses a hand to her mouth, hoping to mask the intensity of her reactions, but she knows better than to hope that Rio hasn’t picked up on them.

He further proves this point when he plucks a bottle of pills up from the supplies he’s set out on the counter, shaking it slightly to gain her attention. She blinks her eyes open, squinting over at him as her face contorts with a grimace.

“I thought you——you said we didn’t need——it out,” she mumbles, unable to properly string her words together as a particularly searing bout of pain draws a choked whine from her deep in her chest.

“I said I wouldn’t have you passin’ out on me. You ain’t even got a stitch in you yet and you white as a sheet. ”

Beth musters enough energy to shoot him a glare, but if his responding look of amusement is anything to go by, her own comes off more benign than she intends.

“I’m not going to pass out. I’ll be fine,” she grits out, pointedly ignoring the dubious look he fixes her with in response. He rounds the counter a few seconds later, still clutching the small bottle of pills in one hand as he perches himself on the edge of the seat beside hers.

He tilts his head as he studies her, his brown eyes roaming over her form before meeting her own. She’s sure that the exhaustion lining his hooded eyes is evident in her own features, as well, and she resists the urge to brush her thumb over the sharp ridge of his cheekbone as he sighs heavily through his nose. He wets his lips briefly before setting the bottle down on the counter beside them, closer to Beth than the rest of the first aid supplies, and now it’s her turn to study him as he seems to wrestle with a thought, debating whether or not to say it out loud.

It’s not long before his hesitance wins out, and she can see the moment the words die on his tongue. The look he gives her is one she doesn’t recognize, bordering on sympathetic with a trace of something she can’t put a name to—something that feels so familiar yet so obscure—and she thinks that if she were somebody else, if he were, if they weren’t _them,_ she’d ask him about it. Maybe she’d unearth a new clue about the enigma of man that constantly clouds her thoughts and haunts her dreams.

The silence that’s filled the room feels thick enough to smother as his fervent gaze holds her own, and it takes her a moment to find herself when she finally tears hers away. She can feel his eyes on her still, practically hears the way he bites his tongue as he begins to fiddle with the items on the counter, and when she deems it safe to pick her gaze up off the ground again, her mind is well and truly reeling because _what the hell was that?_

Beth feels slightly detached from herself as she watches Rio tear open the suture kit and dig out the items inside. There’s a pair of scissors, a needle holder, and a scalpel handle, as well as a few thin packets that he rips open next. From two of them, he pulls out a slim roll of nylon suture, while the remaining silver packet contains a single scalpel blade. She’s seen a suture kit two, maybe three times in her life, and those were only in the hospital after she’d given birth; the needle that Rio has just set on the counter in front of her is unlike anything she’s ever seen. It’s rounded out to the size of a half-circle, the needle end pointed while the other end has a closed eye for the suture to be threaded through.

Rio stands rather abruptly, then, rocking to his feet and rounding the island before Beth can so much as bat an eye. He stops in front of the sink and washes his hands thoroughly, lathering them up with a foaming soap and scrubbing along his forearms, stopping just below the crook of his elbow.

She diverts her gaze, internally chastising herself for staring _again,_ and settles for studying the rest of the supplies that he’s laid out next to the suture kit. There’s the bottle of Oxy that he’d been rather insistent on her taking, but besides it, there’s a small white tube of something called Lidocaine, a few pre-packaged squares of gauze, and a roll of medical tape. She finds her gaze lingering on the bottle of pills for a moment longer than the rest of the items, and the fleeting moment of deliberation that passes over her is swept away when Rio drops back into the seat beside her.

He catches her line of sight (because _of course he does_ ) before she can reroute it, following it to the small orange bottle, and she’s a bit shocked to find that his expression has smoothed out into something impassive and free of judgement as he studies her.

“I won’t lie, darlin’, this s’gon’ hurt like hell. That’s what the meds are for,” he tells her, his voice too gentle, too perceptive for her to handle when she’s barely holding herself together. She won’t meet his eyes—can’t risk him catching sight of the turmoil lurking behind her own, and she narrowly resists the urge to squeeze them shut as another nauseating wave of pain floods her body. She refuses to relent, to prove his point; to show him weakness like she’s made the mistake of doing too many times before.

She’s not confident in how well she sells it, considering that all she manages to respond with is a weak shake of her head, but he doesn’t push her any further on it as he acknowledges her refusal with a irritated sigh.

He shifts his body towards the counter and picks up the suture needle, threading the nylon through the eye with deft fingers as Beth pulls back the washcloth to check on her hip. Although the cloth is a darker shade of blue, she can tell that the dark outline of blood has expanded a bit since she’d first pressed it to her hip. She cants her head and shifts her hips, hoping to get a better view of the bullet wound and check the severity of the bleeding, but Rio drops a hand to her thigh a second later, stalling her movement with a firm squeeze.

Her breath hitches despite herself as she shifts her attention back to him. Her eyes briefly dart to the counter, clocking the suture needle that he’s somehow already threaded, before settling back on him expectantly.

“Think you can get up on the counter yourself, or you need a hand?” Rio asks casually, briefly throwing Beth for a loop, and right, she thinks, her brain catching up with the technicality of their situation—he can’t work on her hip at eye-level.

She glances at the counter again, sizing up the distance before she experimentally tenses the muscles in her arm. She must wince, or grimace, or give some other tell that gives away the fatigue weighing heavy on her limbs, because Rio is on his feet and stepping between her legs before she can even process that he’s moved. She thinks that his catlike movements are to blame for half of her exhaustion, but she bites her tongue on commenting as much when he splays a hand along her waist.

This time, when her breath catches, Beth is quick to mask it, clearing her throat (a bit too harshly) as Rio wraps a hand around one of her wrists and guides it to his neck. He quirks a brow at her, silently beckoning her to follow his lead, and she mirrors the action with her free hand, linking them together behind his neck as though it’s the most normal thing in the world—as though her heart isn’t filling her ears like a spastic drumbeat, every one of her nerve endings catching fire as her fingers brush over his warm skin for the first time in four months.

He bends down a bit, his face almost level to hers, and she hates that she still remembers how it felt to have his lips on hers, hates how her mind supplies the memory of it when the gap between them shrinks, her thoughts tripping over one another in their haste to make sense of what’s happening, and she swears that she sees his eyes drop to her lips before a warm hand cups the back of her thigh, snapping her back to her senses.

Rio hoists her up onto the counter like she weighs nothing at all, and right, Beth thinks, a soft flush gracing her neck and chest as his hands slip from her body—just, _right_.

She doesn’t miss the way he licks his lips as he studies her or the soft rumble of him clearing his throat as he steps back, a weighted silence settling between them like a thick fog. He does his best to appear unaffected as he settles back into his chair, his fingers fidgeting with the items on the counter, but for once, he’s almost too easy to read. She can see the tension that’s coiled tight in him, like a spring that’s moments away giving—sees it in the rigid set to his shoulders, in the way he shifts in his seat a bit too often, in the robotic motion of his fingers, the unease of it all so unlike the effortless confidence that constantly guides his movements.

All of this is easier to focus on than the unpleasant sensation of the cool countertop beneath her bare ass, but she refuses to let her embarrassment show when his gaze lingers on the pale line of her legs. For once, his fixation doesn’t seem intentional—more of a slip-up on his part than something driven by spite, and she hates the way the realization settles like a warm stone at the pit of her stomach, the heat spreading upwards until she’s alight with it.

Neither of them attempt to fill the silence as Rio finishes the prep work, and Beth is perfectly content to lie in it—that is, until the gravity of the situation settles on her like a ton of bricks, tension roping around her spine and shoulders until her posture is almost comically rigid. Her idle hope that it goes unnoticed by Rio is scourged when he squeezes a dollop of cream from the white tub onto his finger and goes to spread it over her thigh, only for her to flinch away slightly before he can make contact.

He pulls away slightly, his hand hovering a few inches from her thigh, and she doesn’t even have to look at his face to know that she’s testing the thin veil of his patience. The harsh sigh that follows a moment later is enough to confirm it and Beth flushes, sheepish, as she shifts atop the counter.

“Relax, darlin’,” Rio drawls coolly, tempering his exasperation, and Beth glances down at him.

“What is that?” She asks, jutting her chin out at his finger.

He mirrors the action, gesturing towards the white tube. “T’numb your skin, since you so against the meds.”

She sits up a bit straighter, refusing to dignify the slight dig as he smears the cool cream around the edge of her wound. The sensation comes as a bit of a shock to her irritated, overheated skin, and a shiver works its way down her spine as he rubs it into her skin in gentle, circular motions. She relaxes into his touch once she’s adjusted to the feeling, swaying towards him slightly before she freezes again, catching herself. Her fingers curl around the edge of the counter when he pulls his hand away, resisting the urge to reach out for him, draw him back in, and close the distance between them.

She shakes her head, desperately trying to dismantle the thought because, _god_ , what is _wrong_ with her?

She’s so caught up in her thoughts, she doesn’t register that Rio has moved until the sharp point of the suture needle enters her vision, the polished metal glinting beneath the bright kitchen lights. He glances up at her, then, seeming to sense her alarm, his keen eyes boring into her as they dance across her face.

After the passing of what feels like minutes, but must only be seconds, he makes a gruff noise in the back of his throat, like he’s just confirmed something by reading between the lines of her expression. It sets the nerves in her stomach aflutter and she shifts once more against the counter, her eyes fixed on him as he busies himself with fastening the thread to the needle.

Then, “What happened to your mother?”

And it must be obvious—the way her head jerks up at his words, her jaw dropping in utter shock, because then he’s smirking up at her, amusement flashing across his features when her eyes snap to him. It takes her a few beats to recover from her speechless state, and it’s in the same moment that she opens her mouth to reply that she feels a pinprick stab at her thigh.

Beth cuts herself off with a sharp inhale, her response dying on her tongue, and she’s reflexively lowering her eyes to where Rio has just dug into her skin when his low drawl fills the space between them.

“‘Ey, eyes up here, yeah?”

The words are an echo of the same instruction he gave her earlier tonight, when she was bleeding on the concrete floor of the warehouse, and the familiarity of it is enough to draw her attention away from where he’s easing the needle through to the other side of the wound. She hisses at the pain as she shifts her gaze to him, to where his attention is fixed on her thigh, and he doesn’t look up from the task at hand when he speaks.

“Your ma, she a’ight?” He reiterates, his steady tone giving nothing away. She bites down on her lip ashe pierces the needle into her skin a second time, the sensation distracting her from the weight of the question she’s answering.

“She’s dead.”

Rio’s hands stall briefly, the metal tools poised midair from where he’d been wrapping the thread around the holder. It’s only a beat or two before he’s schooling his reaction with practiced eased, his hands resuming their previous actions like he’s been through this process a hundred times before. Maybe he has, she muses.

When he doesn’t pry for more information, Beth finds herself inexplicably inclined to fill the silence. And hell, it’s not like she’s ever _enjoyed_ talking about her mother, but it’s been a while since she’s had an opening for it, let alone been willing to.

“It happened almost a decade ago. I didn’t hear about it until I got a call from the hospital where she…”

Rio glances up when she trails off, and she wonders if the detachment in her tone is as loud to his ears as it is to her own.

“She cut you off?” He asks, lowering the needle back to her thigh, and Beth swallows around the lump in her throat as her gaze flits to the windows that scale the walls of the living area. The inky black canvas of the night seems too vast to be seen from a place as small as this, the glimmer of buildings, freeways, and streetlights plentiful yet inconsequential beneath the smattering of stars looming overhead.

“I think that would require us actually talking at some point,” she explains, trying to imbue some humor into her tone and pointedly avoiding his inquisitive gaze when she fails miserably at it. “Not every person who becomes a parent is fit for the role.”

Beth isn’t sure how she expects Rio to react to this sentiment, but it sure as hell isn’t the genuine rumble of laughter that spills from his lips, the mellifluous sound echoing off the bare walls of the apartment.

“Ain’t that the truth,” he murmurs, his attention still honed in on the practiced motion of his hands as he carefully knots the thread and pulls the needle away from her, securing the first suture. She steals a glance at it while he’s occupied with cutting the excess ends of the thread, her attention snagging on the sight of the thin nylon cord disappearing beneath the bright red skin of her thigh.

He repeats the process all over again, lowering the needle back to her skin once he’s fitted it back into the clamp. The sensation isn’t nearly as painful as the first stitch had been, which she takes as a sign that whatever medication he’d spread over her skin earlier is starting to kick in, but it’s still incredibly unpleasant. She sucks in a sharp breath as the needle pierces through her skin again and pins her gaze on the bathroom door.

“And your father?” Rio asks suddenly, his gaze still downcast. Beth is better at masking her surprise this time, knows that he’s just trying to offer her a distraction, but still. She doesn’t think she’ll ever adjust to this version of him—the one that asks questions instead of dodging them, that wants to know her in ways that are more than _just work—_ even if he’s only assuming it as a courtesy, only presenting it to her when she’s unwittingly at her most vulnerable.

“He walked out on us when I was a teenager,” she replies, grateful for the lack of eye contact as she does so. She doesn’t think she’d be able to stomach anyone’s reaction to this bit of information when she’s this feeble, let alone Rio’s.

And maybe it’s that—the period of remission from having his eyes on her—combined with the rush of indulging in such relaxed dialogue with him that suddenly makes her feel bold, because the question has barely even formed in her head before it’s spilling from her lips in a single breath.

“What about you?”

The words are enough to snag his attention, distracting him from his task, and Beth’s resolve falters a bit when he doesn’t answer right away. For a moment, she doesn’t believe he’s going to respond at all—that he won’t dignify her discreet attempt at prying into his personal life with anything more than a hard stare—and she doesn’t blame him for it.

Then, “Lost my pop two weeks into fifth grade. Was jus’ my ma ’n’ my sisters after that.”

A formidable array of emotions rips through Beth’s chest like shards from a splintered glass. Her lips part wordlessly, several thoughts clashing and crumbling before they have the chance to leave her tongue, and for several beats of silence, it’s all she can do to maintain her composure as he pins her beneath his rapt gaze. He keeps his expression carefully blank as he studies her, not even revealing so much as a trace of amusement at her speechless state, and it suddenly dawns on her—how much it must cost him to be honest with her, to bare this sliver of his true self to her.

When she finally decides to pick her jaw up off the floor, she only manages to pluck one word from the hectic aggregation of her thoughts.

“Sisters?”

Beth isn’t sure if it’s the pitch of her voice or the look on her face that ultimately cracks Rio’s composure, but either way, something warm and fond sparks in her chest at the sight of him when his lips quirk with reserved affection.

“Two of ‘em, both older. Gave me hell for just ‘bout everythin’ I did, but they were always lookin’ out for me,” he says, breaking his gaze away from hers as he begins to knot the second suture. She’s momentarily stunned, unsure of how to respond, not at all used to requesting an inch from him and being given a mile. It doesn’t help that the adoration in his tone is rich and distinct, the sound of it so genuine and poignant that she can’t help but feel like she doesn’t deserve to hear it—like she’s intruding by trying to know him in a capacity that she holds no right to.

“And your mom? Is she still…” She asks, her tone softening as she trails off.

“Yeah,” he answers easily, and she releases a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “She lives ‘bout an hour out from Detroit. Movin’ her outta the hood was the first thing I did when I started makin’ real money.”

Beth’s mind works itself into a frenzy as it processes this information. She’s not surprised to hear that Rio has been prioritizing his family from the beginning—she learned long ago that his motivations weren’t as different from her own as she’d initially thought—but the way he shares about it so freely is a staggering contradiction to every other interaction they’ve had since she first met him. The task of trying to fit together the familiar, more reticent version of him—the one that has always reveled in watching her run in circles to get a single straight answer out of—with this one feels impossible in her current state.

There are so many questions she wants to ask him—about his family, his childhood, _him—_ but none of them make it past her lips because the last thing she wants is for him to shut down on her if she pries too far.

Instead, what comes out is, “I only ever made enough to pay for groceries and the power bill.”

She takes her time in dragging her gaze back to him, feeling wary of what she’ll find in his expression. For the most part, he’s as unreadable as he’s always been when he’s working something out in his head, but she catches the hint of surprise that flashes across his face as he takes in this information, most likely slotting it into his perception of her in the same way she’d just been doing with him.

“That how you ended up with that dumbass husband of yours?” He questions, feigning indifference, but the captious lilt to his tone gives him away, prompts Beth to study him a bit closer when she catches the rigid set of his jaw.

Her answer comes out a bit too easily for her liking but _what the hell_ , she figures—there’s probably not much for her to tell him that he hasn’t already made his conclusions about.

“I guess in some ways, yeah. I could barely afford to keep the lights on, let alone put myself through school, and when Annie got pregnant——”

Realizing she’s shared too much, Beth cuts herself off, her gaze leaving Rio as heat licks over her skin. It’s not as though her past is something she’s ashamed of— _especially_ not the parts that involved Annie; she’d do it all over again in a heartbeat—but the memories have never been particularly fond to look back on.

What’s more significant about her doing so now, though, is that she’s doing it with _him._ Because even though they’re on better terms and tonight’s events have created this unexpected truce between them, none of it changes the fact that this isn’t what they _do—_ they don’t swap experiences from their youth and share about their loved ones. It’s too intimate, too domestic; too _normal_ in comparison to every other conversation they’ve had, and it thrills her just as much as it terrifies her.

“He was the safest choice,” Beth concludes quietly, resisting the urge to fidget when her words are met with silence. She swallows her nerves and steals a glance down at him, unsurprised to find his attention fixed on her leg, his deft fingers maneuvering the needle to the other side of the wound with careful precision.

“You did what’chu had to,” Rio replies softly, earnestly, like _he_ _gets_ _it,_ and Beth thinks she’d like nothing more in that moment than to bottle the sound of it.

He ties off the third suture before he raises his eyes to hers, regarding her thoughtfully as their silence begins to stretch like a chasm between them, and it’s not long before a layer of tension begins to seep into it like a thick fog. She can’t help it when her gaze drifts from his own to trace over the contours of his features—the glint of his cheekbones beneath the ceiling lights, the scruff that dapples the sharp ridge of his jaw; the curve of his full lips and his tongue as it darts out to wet them.

Time seems to escape Beth as their gazes lock again. Something indecipherable flashes across Rio’s features a few moments later, and before she’s able to process what it could be, he breaks his gaze from hers somewhat reluctantly, raking it down her body until it reaches the wound at her hip.

She’s taken aback slightly when she follows his line of sight and realizes that he’s already finished the stitches—had she really been _that_ distracted?

There’s another stifling beat of silence before he sniffs and breaks his gaze from her. He pivots in his chair slightly towards the counter as he reaches for the small patches of gauze and the roll of medical tape.

He’s slow and methodical as he lays the gauze over her wound, the press of his fingertips steady and warm as he smooths the tape down over the edges. Even as a slight shiver works its way down her spine, she finds the sensation much more soothing than she wishes it was, and she nearly pouts at the loss of contact when he finishes bandaging her up.

He sets the roll of tape back on the counter and knits his fingers together in his lap as his gaze flits back to her. He studies her openly with an unreadable expression until she’s fidgeting beneath his scrutiny, and the slight movement is apparently enough to break him from his reverie.

“You should get some rest,” he tells, jerking his head in the direction of the bedroom area behind him. “I’ll take you home in the mornin’.”

Beth nods, her eyes roaming over to the plush-looking bedspread. She can feel her aching limbs and her sore muscles practically _singing_ at the prospect of collapsing into the pillows.

When she glances back over at Rio, he wordlessly rises from his seat and strides off in the direction of the bedroom. Her brows furrow as her eyes follow the long, retreating line of him, confusion coloring her features as he comes to a stop in front of the wooden chest of drawers sitting opposite the bed. He opens one drawer, then another, rifling through them for a minute or two, and it’s only once he’s returning to her with a bundle of black fabric in his arms that she realizes what he’d been gathering.

He sets the small collection of clothing down on the counter before stepping back into her space and wrapping an arm around her waist. She’s about to ask what he’s doing, the question rising on the tip of her tongue, when he nods at the ground and gestures with his free hand towards the space in front of her. And _oh,_ she thinks, a light flush gracing her cheeks as she shoots him a shy, grateful smile.

With his arm at her back to steady her, she’s able to slide down from the counter with far less difficulty than she had getting on it. She still winces when she hits the floor despite landing with her weight on her right leg, and she doesn’t miss the way Rio’s grip tightens on her waist in response.

Once she’s upright and relatively stable, he pauses, his eyes sweeping over her form in something akin to an assessment as his lips twist into a frown.

“Think you can walk?” He asks for the second time tonight, though his expression is more than doubtful.

Beth shifts a fraction of her weight to her left leg experimentally, exhaling a hoarse breath when pain sparks at the junction between her hip and thigh. She powers through it, distributing a bit more of her weight until it’s nearly even between both legs, oddly determined to curb his doubt and belie the amount of pain it causes her.

She sucks in a breath and releases it slowly before she nods at him. He doesn’t look very convinced by her answer but releases her regardless, stepping neatly to the side to give her more space.

She feels his eyes on her as she shuffles over to the counter and gathers the clothing he’d retrieved for her into her arms, but she refuses to acknowledge it as she hobbles her way over to the bed. For a brief moment, she considers dipping back into the bathroom to change for the sake of maintaining what’s left of her dignity, but the thought of adding an extra step between her and the bed is almost abhorrent. It’s nothing that he hasn’t seen already, she reminds herself—hell, she just had her bare ass on the kitchen counter for the better part of twenty minutes, and there’s nothing separating his gaze from it now.

A small flame ignites in her belly at the thought and she’s glad that she has her back turned to him, knows that her unbidden desire must be written all over her face. By the time she makes it to the side of the bed, the throbbing in her hip has sharpened to the point where her leg is practically trembling with the task of keeping herself upright. She dumps the pile of clothes in her hand on the bedspread and grabs what appears to be a t-shirt, holding it out in front of her so that she can locate the bottom of it.

She strips her sweater over her head gracelessly and tosses it onto the bed before glancing down at her bra. She pushes her hesitation aside and lifts her hands to her back, popping the clasps open before carefully sliding the black straps down her arms. A sigh of relief slips past her lips as it falls away from her body, the alleviation of pressure briefly distracting her from the ache at her hip.

From somewhere behind Beth, there’s a quiet gasp as Rio’s breath hitches in his throat, and just as her body reflexively tenses in anticipation, a sultry wave of satisfaction floods through her.

She resists the urge to glance over her shoulder, to see for herself the effect she still has on him, but she fixes her gaze on the wall in front of her instead, her posture inadvertently straightening as she pulls his t-shirt on over her head. It strains over her breasts slightly, the fabric meant for his lithe form instead of her curvaceous one, but she can’t find the energy to be self-conscious about it.

When she glances down at the pair of sweatpants he’d grabbed for her, she finds that she doesn’t have the energy to pull them on, either, (getting them over the swell of her ass alone isn’t a fight she’s particularly willing to have, anyway) so she forgoes them, tossing the rest of the clothing to the floor before tugging the comforter down.

She climbs into bed in just his shirt and her panties, pulling the blankets right up to her shoulder, and the only thing she registers once her head hits the pillow is the click of a lock before she’s out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did my best to make the first aid procedures as true to reality as i could, which involved some extensive research on the physics of treating a gunshot wound and some google searches that have since been deleted from my search history. it was interesting to learn that the bullets rio presents beth with most likely wouldn’t have been removed if they didn’t serve the purpose of helping him with his theatrics, lol. anyway, i think this is the most i’ve ever had to research for a story, so i hope it shows!  
> also, i want to apologize for how long this took me to post, and that i'm having to extend the upload for the ending (and the smut, lol. i promise it's still happening!). i had a really difficult mental block during june that i just couldn’t shake for about two weeks, and i didn’t want to rush through the parts i was having trouble with and give you all something i wasn’t proud of just to get a quick update out. incidentally, i didn't think i'd be uploading more than two parts, so i was working on the third chapter for the back half of july thinking that i would upload it all at once.  
> bottom line, i need to work on having a routine and an upload schedule. lesson learned!  
> i will HOPEFULLY have the last part up somewhere around mid-august.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i put a brief explanation for this very (very) delayed update along with the rest of my ramblings in the end notes, but first and foremost, i want to thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for sticking around and supporting this story throughout my hiatus. seriously, it means the absolute world to me, and i can't thank you all enough.  
> i hope you all enjoy the final chapter, and that it was worth the wait!  
> send me prompts, suggestions, theories, or just a hello @elise-jupiterstyle on tumblr!

When Beth wakes, it's to the distant trill of a cellphone.

She blinks her eyes open, her vision bleary as she props herself up on one elbow. The area surrounding her is completely shrouded in darkness, the moonlight spilling in from one of the windows barely enough to make out the edges of a few furniture pieces, so it takes her a moment to realize that she’s not in her own bedroom. 

It takes her another two to remember why she’s not, for her brain to slot in the missing details with memories from the night before, and then it’s immediate—the way her eyes sweep over the expanse of the loft like a searchlight, frisking the open space for any signs of Rio.

As expected, he’s nowhere to be found, and when Beth’s certain there isn’t a single visible corner that her gaze hasn’t touched, she bears more weight down onto her elbow and eases herself up into a sitting position. She shoves the plush comforter off of her torso, moving to slide her legs out from underneath the sheets when a searing pain explodes at her hip.

And right, she thinks, cursing softly under her breath. She’s been _shot_.

She feels the suture thread pull taut as she eases her legs over the side of the mattress, her movementsnow stiff and cautious. There’s another brief stab of pain, though less intense than the last, and she stalls once she’s sitting upright, lowering a hand to her wound as though the warmth from her palm could soothe it.

The trek across the loft isn’t as difficult as it had been the first time, but the throbbing in her hip only intensifies until the area practically has its own heartbeat. Though she continues to clutch at it, she resists the urge to press down on the sutures—not wanting to damage them or exacerbate the pain—making a mental note to pick up some heavy-duty pain medicine when she’s back home.

As she hobbles into the kitchen and glances out towards the living area, she can’t help but notice that the floor-to-ceiling windows seem somehow bigger this time of night, like they’ve absorbed every inch of the night sky and converted it into a novel work of realism. She can tell it’s well into the twilight hours of the night, but the moon’s position tells her that there’s still a couple of hours before the sun is due over the horizon.

Her phone has stopped ringing by the time she reaches the seat that her coat is draped over. She settles into the adjacent seat at the counter, doing a double take when she clocks the array of first aid supplies laid out on the counter from earlier.

If there’s one thing she’s certain about when it comes to Rio, it’s his extensive organization and his neat-freak tendencies. Surely he wouldn’t have been able to walk past this counter without packing everything away.

She tries to think back to what she’d heard before she’d drifted off—vaguely remembers hearing the click of a door, him exiting the loft. She thought that might’ve been to make a phone call—something that wouldn’t’ve required him leaving for however many hours she’d been passed out for—but it’s evident that he left to take care of something that couldn’t wait until the morning.

Beth swallows thickly as she fumbles with her coat, shifting her attention towards finding her phone instead of the possible repercussions from her actions that he’s most likely handling alone. When she finally finds the right pocket and gets her hands on her phone, she’s unsurprisingly met with a missed call from Annie, along with a string of texts that aren’t even ten minutes old.

She can feel an anxious pit forming in her stomach as she taps into her messages and scrolls through the chain of blue bubbles. The earlier ones are nothing to be concerned about—a few updates about the kids and what time they went to bed, along with some reassurance about Danny’s condition—but the more recent ones are distinctly more strained in tone. A bit of Beth’s fear dissipates as she reads through them and realizes that Annie’d been asking after _her_ more than she’d been disclosing details about her kids.

Still, this poses an entirely different concern—figuring out how to tell Annie that she’s bunkering in a Canadian loft with Rio for the night.

Beth sighs, setting her phone on the counter and sinking back into her seat. The insertion point blinks uselessly at the front of the empty text box, mocking her.

She needs a drink.

She mulls it over for all of five seconds before she’s rocking up and out of her chair, clutching the countertop for support as she hobbles to the other side of the island. Her eyes roam over the cupboards that line the ceiling above the counters as she approaches them, counting her lucky stars that there’s a bottle of liquor stashed away in one of them.

She hums in satisfaction when, after some brief exploring, she locates a bottle of whiskey in the cabinet next to the fridge, as well as a small collection of glasses occupying the bottom shelf. She pours herself a generous serving before rounding the island and returning to her seat, leaving the open bottle on the counter for later.

She slumps back into her seat, savoring her first slip of the copper liquid as she mulls over her response to Annie. It leaves a trail of fire in its wake as it slips down her throat, the familiar burn of it an odd sort of comfort after the last four hours of absolute hell she’s endured.

She’s not so much worried about Annie’s reaction—for all the snarky comments and innuendos she enjoys pestering Beth with, she’s grown more comfortable around Rio since realizing that he doesn’t have a murderous vendetta against Beth anymore—as she is about Ruby’s when Annie inevitably opens her big mouth. Annie’s interrogations are easy enough to wriggle her way out of, but it’s a different story when it comes to the person who’s always known her better than she knows herself. If push comes to shove and Ruby confronts her about tonight or, god forbid, she sees the _gunshot wound_ on her hip, she won’t be able to lie her way out of it.

She’s drained half of the contents of her glass by the time she constructs a suitable response. She types it out and reads over it twice before pressing send, hoping that Annie won’t prob for more information or follow up with another phone call. Not that Annie’s ever been the most perceptive person, but she’s certain her voice will sound more wrecked than a few hours’ rest could excuse.

She sinks back further into her seat, the rim of her glass barely gracing her lips before the click of a lock echos off the walls of the loft. She twists around instinctively, wincing when the sharp motion tugs at the stitches, but the sensation becomes inconsequential the moment Rio steps through the doorway. His movements are implicit and languid, his legs carrying him forward as if on autopilot as he turns on his heel and shuts the door softly behind him.

It’s clear that he hasn’t caught sight of her yet, and Beth takes a quiet sip of her whiskey as she studies the long line of his body as he moves, the tendons in his hand shifting as he shoves his keys back into the front pocket of his jeans. She clocks the way his gaze flits to the bed—his brows furrowing minutely as he takes in the rumpled, empty sheets—before it sweeps over to the kitchen and lands on her.

There’s a fine quirk to his lips that she’s just barely able to make out as she watches him slowly pull his hand off the door. He tucks them both into his back pockets as he stalks towards her, slowing his gait to a crawl as he drags his gaze appreciatively down her body, and it’s the note of fondness in it that sparks a familiar heat low in her belly.

“Startin’ early, huh?” He asks, his voice hushed and rumbling as if to not disrupt the stillness of the early hour.

She cracks a coy smile before taking a pointed sip from her drink. “It’s not day-drinking if the sun’s still down.”

Rio smirks as he nears her, huffing out a laugh before gently coaxing her drink out of her hand. She does nothing to stop him, briefly enraptured by the way his lips purse and the bird on his throat ripples as he takes a generous swig.

He meets her gaze when he’s finished, his smirk broadening as he lowers her glass to the counter. She flushes, realizing she’s been caught out, but doesn’t look away, refusing to give him the satisfaction of it.

“Stitches holdin’ up a’ight?” He asks with a pointed glance down at her hip.

“I haven’t checked,” She replies, shifting unsubtly beneath his scrutiny. She knows it’s a bit ridiculous to feel shy about the fact that she’s still just in her underwear, but she’s in no way immune to the effect he has on her, especially when he looks at her like _that._ It makes her feel utterly exposed, and she can’t help but loathe the way it lights her up.

“I’ll show you how to swap out bandages before we head out,” Rio says suddenly, shifting his gaze from her body as he downs the rest of the contents in _her_ glass. “You gonna need to replace ‘em ‘least twice a day.”

She serves him an unimpressed look, staring pointedly at the empty glass in his hand, but this only serves to amuse him further, if the sharp quirk of his lips is any indication. He doesn’t give her the chance to speak before he’s striding past her, rounding the island and stopping in front of the open bottle of whiskey. She watches on absently as he opens the overhead cupboard and grabs another tumbler out of it, setting both glasses down on the counter before pouring a finger-full of the amber liquid into each. 

When he spins around to face her again, it’s to place her drink on the counter in front of her, and her petulant expression morphs into something moderately grateful as she wraps her hand around the cool glass. He drops into the chair diagonal to hers, sliding his glass towards hers in a mock-toast that she meets with a curious glance.

They settle into a comfortable silence afterwards, each nursing their own drink as their minds wander down separate paths. Rio isn’t shy about staring at her, whether her gaze is wandering or fixed on his own, and she can feel the alcohol rapidly warming her veins, lowering her inhibitions until she’s feeling bold enough to vocalize her thoughts.

“Can I ask you something?” She asks, raising her gaze to his. He exhales sharply through his nose in something akin to laughter as he eyes her lazily.

“You askin’ permission now?” He teases before tilting his glass to his lips. She rolls her eyes as she runs a finger around the rim of her glass, biting her tongue on a rebuttal about his own tendencies regarding _permission_. Instead, she returns to the subject at hand, sorting through her thoughts and mapping out how best to word them in a way that won’t result in him shutting down on her.

“You said you’ve been doing this for a long time—since before you became a father, I’m assuming,” Beth starts, her tone candid and placating, all too aware that mentioning his son runs a high risk of carrying her out into dangerous waters. She practically sighs in relief when Rio nods in confirmation, his features blank and his gaze unwavering, granting her his undivided attention.

“I guess I just——how do you do it? How do you do _this_ ,” she gestures vaguely to the space around them, “for a living and still have time for your son?”

Rio takes a moment to reply, his fingers playing with the rim of his glass as he tilts it and passes it between his hands. For a moment she thinks he isn’t going to reply—that her time to dig into his personal life without resistance has expired, but then his low drawl is filling the silence between them.

“No choice but to make it work,” he answers, his expression twisted in something akin to remorse as he averts his gaze from hers. He focuses on the contents of his glass before taking a slow sip from it, grimacing at the burn of it. “I never planned on havin’ a kid. Seen it be used against some unlucky dumbass too many times to risk bringin’ my own into this world, but Rhea——”

He cuts himself off as soon as the name leaves his mouth, leading Beth to believe that mentioning Rhea to her is the last thing he wanted to do. She inadvertently stiffens as a familiar wave of guilt washes over her, her back straightening and her shoulders tensing as she tightens her grip on her glass. She holds her breath as she waits for him to continue, unable to meet his eyes and confront the resentment she's sure to find there. 

“Shit, things had never been worse between us, but when I saw my son for the first time…” he pauses once again, though there's something different in his voice this time that draws her gaze back to his. There's a slight crease in the space between his brows while his dark eyes shine with an undercurrent of affection and nostalgia. It weighs heavily on her heart—knowing that this side of him isn’t hers to have, that his loved ones are exposed to it in greater capacities than stolen glances and slip-ups.

Sometimes she wonders if she could’ve had it for herself—if he would’ve shown it to her willingly, given the chance—had she not gone and fucked it all up. If she would’ve ever known that his son’s name is Marcus or that the mother of his child is a nurse had she not pilfered the information for herself behind the back of his corpse.

Rio sniffs a bit as he mulls over his thoughts, his gaze seeming to sweep across every corner of the loft as he avoids her own. She’s not sure if he’s aware of how much his body language gives him away—if the rigidity of his shoulders, slump of his posture, and set of his jaw are serving where words are failing him, or if he’s too deep in his thoughts to even remember she’s in the room with him. Either way, she clocks every minute movement, greedily drinking in every crack in his inscrutable mask.

“We knew we couldn’t give ‘im up,” he says finally, his eyes still downcast as he throws back the rest of his whiskey. 

Although Beth nods in understanding, her mind rapidly wanders from the conversation as she studies him a bit closer, trying to pick apart the off-kilter set to his features.

She's not sure whether it's his expression or his tone that sparks it, but in the next moment she's being swept up by the memory—one of many that she’d buried months ago beneath layer upon layer of guilt and grief—of feigning her miscarriage. She’s as certain now as she was then that her chances of negotiating her survival would’ve plummeted if she fessed up, but god, all the reasoning in the world can’t erase the memory of the way he’d looked at her. The way his composure had faltered for a brief, heart-wrenching moment—his steely gaze flickering with dolor and disappointment, his harsh tone softening into something exhausted and resigned—as reality stared them both in the face. His sanguine and hostility had visibly drained from him in a matter of seconds and _god_ _—_ sometimes she wishes he’d shot her instead of letting her live with the memory of him in such a sullen state.

The expression he’s wearing now isn't the same but it's just as foreign, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d say he almost looks _uncomfortable._ She knows that he’s not accustomed to sharing the private parts of his life with her unless it plays into some grand scheme, but oddly enough, whatever discomfort it’s clearly causing him doesn’t appear to be associated with any remorse.

She feels as though she’s in a daze, overwhelmed by the gravity of the conversation—by these revelations about his life that she thought she’d been permanently condemned from—so she shifts the course of it towards calmer waters.

“My son is sick,” she offers without preamble, trying not to read into the way Rio’s head raises in response to her words, his gaze finally seeking out her own again. “That’s why my phone rang. I had no idea——”

She cuts herself off with a lame shake of her head, knowing that an explanation serves no real purpose to either of them after the fact. Thing is, her mind has been struggling to keep up since they fled the warehouse, and now that she’s pieced together her memories of last night to form a full picture, she’s able to see the explicit reality of her fault.

An apology quickly brews on the tip of her tongue and her lips part to let it pass; only Rio beats her to it, his rumbling voice splintering the glass of her one-way mirror and shattering her self-reproach.

“Me neither."

Beth jerks towards him, utterly baffled and entirely incapable of believing that he’s just admitted to doing something wrong. For as long as she’s known him, he’s made it abundantly clear that her mistakes and oversights are her burden to carry—teaching her how she’s supposed to handle loose ends, that she needs to enforce boundaries, that her role in his business is binding; that it’s her _identity_ —and now that he’s claiming his share of the blame, she doesn’t know how to react.

“Should’a known he’d be a paranoid fucker but, shit, I didn’t think he’d——.”

He shakes his head to himself, distracted, as he trails off. He seems to drift in his thoughts for a moment as his eyes wander around the open space of the loft, his lips parting like he has something to add before he visibly bites his tongue, clamping his jaw shut with a quiet sniff.

He becomes oddly restless as the seconds tick by, fidgeting with the few rings that adorn his fingers and bouncing his leg as his jaw works furiously. He catches her off-guard when he breaks the silence a minute later, his voice is bemusedly ambivalent.

“Why’d you do it?”

Beth's heart catches in her throat as her brain just about short-circuits, her nerves firing off panic signals at a breakneck pace. She swallows thickly, biting down on her lower lip and averting her gaze from his, because they never did figure out how to properly discuss it—have barely even acknowledged it beyond bitter, underhanded mentions of it—let alone attempt to do so when their emotions are running as high as they are now, and——

_Oh_ , she thinks, stealing a glance at him and clocking his calm look of intrigue.

He's talking about _last night_ , not——

_Oh._

She clears her throat.

“It felt like something a good person would do,” she answers civilly, attempting to hide the obvious flush of her cheeks behind her glass. There's a huff of laughter beside her and when she peers over the glass rim, she's surprised to find Rio mirroring her position, belying a smile of his own. What's even more surprising is that isn’t malicious, or mocking, or anything she’s used to seeing on him—it’s something genuine, teeming with reserved affection.

“I was right, y’know,” He drawls, setting his glass on the counter. She sinks further back into her chair and fixes him with a knowing look, refusing to take the bait.

It’s silent between them for a few beats—both of them waiting the other out to see who will break and speak first—before something in Rio’s demeanor shifts a fraction. Beth would bet that to an outsider—someone who hasn’t spent over a year analyzing his body language and micro-expressions—his mask would still appear perfectly fitted to his striking features. An outsider wouldn’t be able to see the flash of admiration, the shadow of remorse, or the flicker of pride when he tells her in earnest, “You _were_ more than that.”

Beth picks up every trace.

And despite rarely ever having the slightest clue as to what’s on his mind, she knows he’s thinking back to that day when he says it—the day she’d proven herself worthy of having a real hand in his business. More than that, though, she remembers that day for how he treated her. He’d been _proud_ _,_ and even knowing now that he’d been using her—that she was perfectly molded for his ploy, and that she was meant to take the fall for him if things went awry—it doesn’t change the way it made her feel. For the first time in over two decades, she had someone in her life who could see her full potential—could truly see _her—_ and it felt _good._

It made her feel _alive._

Even now, woefully perched atop a mountain of remorse, she knows she’d give up every last scrap of normalcy if that’s what it’d take to remember that feeling—to remember _herself._

Would she even recognize the woman she used to be before she met him?

A thought like that should terrify her, she thinks, but it doesn’t.

From there, her mind is quick to pivot into a downward spiral. It’s unlikely she’ll be able to admit it to herself when looking back on this moment, but in her heart she knows it’s the thought of losing him— _truly_ losing him—that ultimately shatters her resolve.

“Do you think we’ll ever get past it?”

She can’t put it into words, won’t say it out loud, so she keeps her phrasing vague, knowing that he’s well-versed in ambiguity and no more willing to vocalize it than she is. She’s a creature of habit, after all—still clinging blindly to the belief that refusing to verbalize something will protect her from the actuality of it. 

She clocks the exact moment the question fully registers in his mind, can clearly see traces of every individual chord she’s struck in the shift of his features. He filters through them in fleeting stages—his jaw locking as he rolls his shoulders before he tempers the flare of his anger; his brows pinching together as he tilts his head softly before he smooths out his features—and she holds her breath, eager to hear his answer but wary of pushing him too far. He’s always been remarkably adept at masking his true feelings, but she can clearly see how difficult this is for him—keeping his emotions tucked away from her prying eyes while she prods at his most painful bruises.

The seconds seem to pass in minutes until he finally releases a deep sigh, smoothing a hand over the bottom half of his face and shaking his head slowly. When his eyes drift back up to hers, there’s a brilliant flame burning within them that she thought she’d seen the last of a very long time ago.

“You askin’ me to forgive you?” Rio asks evenly, his voice giving nothing away.

Beth’s lips part wordlessly as his searing gaze captures hers, her brain short-circuiting at the sheer intensity of it. The question itself isn’t dense in the slightest, but somehow she knows that the implications of her answer will be definitive and indelible.

She knows she doesn’t deserve his forgiveness; she’s taken his clemency towards her for granted more times than she can count at this point. She’s not sure she so much wants his forgiveness as she wants him to know how much she regrets it. She wants him to know that she’ll never forget that night, that she sees his body every time she closes her eyes; that she would take it all back if she could. She wants him to know that she’s not cruel, that she’s not cold-blooded—that she never meant to hurt Rhea or his son with her twisted concept of repentance. 

She wants him to know all of it, she thinks, if he’s willing to hear it, but she doesn’t know if she deserves to tell him. Maybe not yet; maybe not ever.

Just— _maybe_.

"I’m asking if you want to."

Rio draws his bottom lip between his teeth as his gaze narrows on his glass. He seems to be giving the question genuine thought, even if it doesn’t seem like he’s particularly keen on answering it.

Then, “I think you the reason my son almost lost his father.”

And right, Beth thinks, inhaling sharply even as she lowers her gaze on a nod. Even though she knew it was coming, the reminder still tears through her chest like a jagged blade, the guilt nearly overwhelming her in the same way it always did whenever Marcus was near. She nods her head contritely as his answer solidifies in her head, accepting the connotations of it with a heavy heart, several beats of condemning silence passing between them in the wake of her bared sins.

When she finally musters up the courage to raise her eyes from the countertop, she’s nominally blindsided to find his expression solemn and retrospective. She’d been bracing for him to follow up with his scalding glare and acid tongue—not the tepid state of repose that she’s met with.

Before she can so much as figure out what to make of it, let alone react to it, he breaks the silence.

“But you also the reason he still got one.”

It’s so abrupt, then—the way she loses her breath completely, the air rushing from her lungs as though someone has torn them open, and she finds herself desperately seeking out his impenetrable gaze like it’s her only tether to reality. There’s a storm rolling in the depths of it that he wittingly bares to her, mounting in intensity just the same as the tension in the room does, and despite feeling the slightest bit daunted by it, she realizes she wants nothing more than to be swept up by it.

It isn’t forgiveness he’s offering her—she knows better than that; knows _him_ better than that—but she can feel the boundaries between them altering, an implicit truce being drawn up and inked through their concessions. The air shiftsas he watches her process it all—before, she felt as though she was suffocating beneath the weight of everything left unspoken. Now, she feels as though she can finally breathe.

She’s unsure of what draws the next string of words from her tongue—maybe it’s because she believes it just as much as the day she first said it, or maybe it simply just feels right—but regardless, for the first time in nearly half a year, she’s able to voice the thought without its former shadow of duplicity.

“No kid should be without his dad.”

Rio’s features slacken then, his eyes half-lidded and his glass of whiskey partially forgotten in his hands as he studies her. For one fleeting instant—whether by will or by accident, she’s not sure—his mask slips away, exposing every internal schism of his in minute flickers. A crease forms between his brows as he furrows them, his bottom lip juts out as his mouth twists wryly; his jaw works furiously as he wrestles with his emotions—she absorbs it all with rapt fascination, witnessing the breadth of the fracture she’s created in his armor.

The moment passes in a matter of seconds, his shutters snapping back into place as he wipes his expression clean. He glances down at the glass in his hands as if he’s just now remembered it’s there, huffing out a sharp breath through his noise before draining its contents. Beth finds herself mirroring him, both of them studiously avoiding the other’s gaze, but the air between them is different now. She can feel its permanence in the way the thread of tension lining every muscle seems to instantly dematerialize beneath his molten gaze.

He holds hers for a beat more before he abruptly rises from his seat and strides over to the counter behind her. She twists in her seat to face him, tracking his languid movements as he grabs the bottle of whiskey and brings it back over to the island. He pours himself a third before vaguely gesturing to her with the bottle, arching an angular brow in question. She pushes the glass in his direction, accepting the silent offering with a covert smile, and he tops off her drink before setting the bottle down between them.

When he settles back into his seat, there’s a light smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. It’s not particularly humorous—more so ironic, incredulous, with an ambiguous undercurrent of something else he’s struggling to reign in.

“You damn lucky, you know that?” He says a moment later, a sliver of relief seeping into his voice as he flits his gaze pointedly from his glass to her hip. She wills herself not to read into his tone as she nods softly, knowing that he’s right—that she could’ve easily ended up being carted out of that warehouse as a corpse if the circumstances were different—but also knowing that she doesn’t regret it; that if she could go back, she’d do it again in a heartbeat. That she’d do just about anything before she’d watch him bleed out again.

So, instead of replying to his comment with any sort of affirmation, she raises her glass for a toast. A wry smile stretches across her lips when he regards her with that look of intrigue she thought she’d seen the last of long ago. After a moment, he lifts his glass to her own.

“To his aim,” she echoes, deadpan.

Rio's lips curl into a grin as their glasses meet with a _clink_.

···

It’s no more than five, maybe ten minutes before both of their drinks are drained, leaving them both in mild states of intoxication.

Beth revels in the hazy layer of numbness, grateful for the momentary reprieve from the wrecked condition of her body and mind. Rio appears to have settled into a similar state of contentment, if his slack posture and hooded gaze are any indication. 

It’s almost _nice_ , dare she say—just _existing_ near him without the usual charge of bitterness and disdain clouding the space between them. She can feel the alcohol loosening up the tension that lines her muscles, melting the barred edges of her inhibitions—making her more brazen with each glance of him she steals, and it sparks something warm in her when he returns her glances without constraint. 

The atmosphere is comfortable, even companionable, and she thinks she’d be less accepting of it if the last six hours weren’t replaying in her mind on a constant loop. As it is, though, she can’t find it in herself to care. Her mind roams intermittently before inevitably circling back to the man in front of her.

At some point, her gaze finds the clock on the stove behind him and she lets out a reflexive yawn at the sight of the hour. Rio notices, of course, despite her efforts to shield it with her hand.

“How long you got your sister babysittin’ for?” He asks softly, breaking the silence of the room, and despite the tenor of his voice being close to a whisper, she’s a bit startled by the disruption. It takes her a moment to catch up with his words before she fixes him with a confused gaze.

“How’d you know she’s with them?” She questions, more out of curiosity than anything else. At this point, there’s not much about her personal life she’d be surprised to find out he knows.

Rio shrugs noncommittally, jutting out his bottom lip. “Educated guess. Her piece o’ shit car was in your driveway, too.”

Beth snorts out a laugh at that, diverting her gaze from him as her lips curl up in amusement. A joke about Annie’s various states of disorganization dances on the tip of her tongue but she shuts her mouth before it can slip out, suddenly feeling far too exposed at the idea of interacting with him so casually. Given the depth of everything they’ve revealed to each other in just the last hour, her concern over something so trivial is likely moot, but she doesn’t have the energy to investigate her emotions any further than she’s already been required to tonight.

As they fall back into a lapse of comfortable silence, she allows her gaze to wander around the apartment again. It lingers longingly on the plush surface of the bed before it lands on the bathroom, the door just barely within her line of sight, and a new thought momentarily overrides her persistent fatigue.

“Do you think I could take a quick shower?”

Rio jerks his chin down in a sharp nod, unbothered by her request, his gaze briefly dropping to his empty glass before he’s rocking up out of his seat and striding to the opposite side of the kitchen. He grabs her glass on the way, dropping them both in the sink when he reaches it before he twists back around to face her. He eyes off her hip a moment before he speaks.

“Lemme check the stitches, yeah? Make sure they took. I’ll switch out the bandage once you’re done,” he tells her clinically, his expression blank, revealing nothing.

Beth nods in agreement and braces her hands against the counter. She's trying to work out how to get herself up on her feet without tumbling into the refrigerator when suddenly he reaches for her, one hand finding her elbow and the other wrapping around her waist. The gesture is so familiar now it’s kind of ridiculous, she thinks as she sways into him, clutching at his arm like a crutch as he helps her to her feet. She has half a mind to insist that she can walk on her own again, but the overbearing tug of exhaustion ultimately has her conceding to his aid.

The trip to the bathroom isn’t as difficult as it was the first time, the distance from the kitchen being significantly shorter and her balance being relatively restored. She gives him a timid yet grateful smile when he eases her against the bathroom sink and pulls away, taking the warmth of his body with him.

She crosses her arms over her chest as he opens a drawer beneath the sink, resisting the urge to jolt forward when her bare ass makes contact with the frigid countertop. A few beats of silence pass as he rifles through its contents before he finds what he’s searching for, placing a new patch of gauze and a roll of medical tape on the counter next to her. He shuts the drawer softly before angling his body slightly towards hers, his dark eyes boring into her own.

Pinned beneath his gaze, she hardly notices when his fingers begin to inch towards the hem of her— _his—_ t-shirt until the tips of them are brushing the soft skin of her stomach. She can feel her muscles jump beneath his touch—knows that he’s felt it too when his fingers still against her skin, his gaze searching her own, silently seeking out her permission. Beth sucks in a rattling breath before jerking her chin up at him, shifting her weight so that her hips are better angled towards him.

Her breath catches when he drops into a crouch so that he’s eye-level with her hips. His deft fingers are steady as he lifts up the shirt with one hand and peels the tape off with the other. She’s starkly aware of what _other_ parts of her body he’s now within reach of and her face _burns_ as he tosses the old piece of gauze and tape into the waste bin by the toilet.

Despite how her heart hammers against her ribcage, Beth can’t help but glance down at Rio as he examines the sutures, taking the opportunity to study his features more carefully. Her eyes trace the slight crease between his brows, the firm set of his lips, and the shadows his long eyelashes cast across his cheeks, finding herself slightly breathless for reasons she doesn’t want to delve into it.

She diverts her gaze just in time for him to straighten back up, opting to studiously inspect the texture of the paint on the bathroom wall when his gaze fixes on her.

“They don’t look too bad, but if they start bleedin’ or your hip starts swellin’, you get ‘em checked out, a’ight?”

When she musters up the courage to meet his gaze, she finds that he's inched much closer to her during his inspection—so much that when she exhales, she swears a shiver ripples down his spine when her breath hits him.

For a fraction of a second her eyes drop to his lips, tracing the enticing pout of his lower lip before she catches herself. Despite her hopes, she can tell that he caught it in the way he clenches his jaw, in the way his tongue darts out to wet his lips in a tantilizing feat, and it’s like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room for the second time that night.

Internally, Beth chastizes herself for her lack of control, all the while studying the flutter of Rio's lashes as he blinks slowly. She should put some space between them, she thinks—give herself a chance to clearly again.

She doesn’t move.

Then, like the brush of a feather, she feels the tips of his fingers gliding over her hip—caressing the stitches he gave her, the bullet she took for him—and it’s mindless, reflexive, _instinctive_ , the way she raises her own hand to his chest and places it over his sternum. With her eyes locked on his, she carefully spreads her fingers along the scars she knows lay beneath the fabric of his shirt—the permanent evidence of the three bullets she’d put in him all the months ago.

It seems like it happened just yesterday, yet it feels like an eternity has passed.

Rio expels a sharp breath—one that ruffles her bangs slightly as he inches imperceptibly closer to her, coveting more of her skin, and his movement mirrors her own as he spreads his long fingers over her hip. His gaze scalds her, burning fervently with a familiar inferno that she thought she’d extinguished for good.

She’s almost certain she isn’t breathing now.

Electricity crackles in the thin space between them, but for the first time since she got him back, she’s not afraid of being singed.

She curls her fingers slightly, bunching the fabric of his button-down beneath her palm, and he responds in kind by curling his hand around the curve of her hip, flattening his palm over her wound. She stares at him in fascination, utterly enraptured by the beauty of his features, by the sight of him in front of her—looming over her, pressing closer to her, and she doesn't think he’s any better off as his gaze dips to her chest, his jaw rocking with the apparent effort of his restraint. She's not quite sure that either of them are breathing, now, both too fearful that the slightest disruption will shatter this fragile bubble they’ve drawn around themselves—one that separates them from their past, their future, and the rest of the world.

Or—— or maybe not their past, she thinks, feeling the hammer of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips. And maybe not their future, either, because she’s been through enough endings with him to know that this is anything but; has found herself on the verge of something akin to this and has fled from it every time.

His eyes drop to her lips as his own part softly, his lower lip jutting out like an invitation, and in that instant, she knows her mind is made up.

She’s tired of running.

Beth raises her other hand to join the one clutching at Rio’s chest, both of them gliding over his collarbone, traveling upwards in unison, and tentatively curling around the nape of his neck. She knits her fingers together before stalling her movements, her breath mingling with his as she waits to see if he’ll recoil—if he'll grant her this bit of intimacy despite everything she's done.

He doesn't recoil.

If anything, his eyes darken, his free hand finding her other hip and squeezing the flesh of it, his grip gentle but firm. Her lips part to exhale a shaky breath, and before she can register her own movements, she's drawing him closer and pressing her lips to his.

A quiet whimper escapes her lips as soon as his lips glide against hers. The way his beard scratches lightly against her sensitive skin has heat curling low in her stomach as her mind supplies her with the memory of how it had felt brushing over other parts of her body. His tongue traces the seam of her lips, seeking entrance that she grants without hesitation, and she shivers slightly before sighing into his mouth when he licks into her own, deepening the kiss with insistence.

She sinks back against the counter slightly, the ridges of his body slotting against the curves of her own as he follows suit. The brush of his jeans against the tender skin of her inner thighs is almost too much to bear as he nudges a knee between her thighs. Her senses are utterly overwhelmed by him—the supple skin of his lips, the solid press of his thigh, the cool brush of his rings as his fingers cup the back of her neck—and suddenly the miles of distance that have kept them apart since they were last together like this seem negligible. It's like she’s sprinting instead of crawling, following street signs rather than hitting road blocks, and as similar as it feels to their first time in her bedroom, it’s entirely different. She thinks it might even be _better_ , because he’s just as tender and she’s just as exposed, but the thought of _after_ is the farthest thing from her mind. She’s not thinking of her children and her husband, or ultimatums and goodbyes—all she can see, smell, hear, taste, feel, and think of is _him,_ and she can’t remember the last time she felt like this. Like her brain was short-circuiting, unable to grasp onto a single thought amongst the influx of sensations and feelings.

They’re panting into each other’s mouths now—clinging desperately to one another, grappling at the fabric that separates their skin, losing themselves in the flurry of their passion until Beth has to break away, gasping for air as she presses her thumb to Rio’s lips, holding him back as he chases blindly after her own. His eyelashes flutter rapidly as he blinks his eyes open, gazing down at her hotly with a look of captivation and reverence that she doesn’t feel the slightest bit deserving of.

They stay like that a moment, his forehead tipping forward slightly to rest against her own as they catch their breath. He pulls away when his breathing begins to even out, and it's instinctual, then—the way she braces herself for the impending rejection, fumbling for the edges of her guard before he can strike.

To her surprise, though, he doesn’t pull back any further than a few inches, his expression showing no indication that he regrets what they've done. She sucks in a sharp breath as his right hand leaves her waist and moves purposefully to the side of her face, the motion so achingly familiar it ties her chest up in knots. Despite herself, her eyes slip shut when the pads of his fingers make contact with her temple, the air rushing from her lungs as he traces over the curve of her cheekbone. His touch is intimate in a way that should terrify her, but as he brushes a lock of hair aside and tucks it gently behind her ear, she feels herself light up.

And for a moment she thinks that maybe— — maybe he doesn’t have to forgive her. Because whether or not she has his forgiveness or he has hers, she knows they’ll always have _this_ _,_ and maybe——

Maybe for now, that's enough.

A few beats pass before he lets his hand fall away from her face, his dark eyes drinking in her features as though he’s just now seeing her for the first time.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Rio whispers, his voice raspy and wrecked in a way that makes heat bloom in Beth's stomach. Her eyes widen as he steps away from her, his words tearing through her chest like a jagged blade, because how can he possibly think she wants him to _leave_ when she's only just found her way back to him?

She pushes away from the counter as he curls his fingers around the doorknob, his name tumbling from her lips before she can stop herself.

“Rio—”

He freezes, one foot out the door and a hand braced against the doorframe, and she swears she could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows.

Then, it hits her: he’s never heard her say his name.

Rio’s shoulders pull taut like a bowstring, his head dipping slightly as his hand slips back to his side, and Beth feels her breath catch in her throat as she waits for him to move. For a moment she fears that he’s going to leave—that he’ll shut the door on what is surely one of the dumbest decisions she’s ever made—but when he slowly pivots back towards her with blatant desire lurking in his expression, she knows that that won’t be the case. 

The look he gives her is long-suffering and obscene with a hint of awe that she’s seldom seen him wear. She realizes she’s still holding her breath when he finally takes a step towards her and the air escapes her lungs in an audible rush. The moment feels as though it’s suspended in time as he takes another step towards her, then another, closing in on her until he’s barely a hair’s breadth away from her, his chest brushing hers as his breath fans out across her forehead.

“Right here, mama,” he murmurs, his voice raspy in all the right places. His gaze scalds her skin like a brand, marking her without even having to lay a hand on her, and when he lowers it to her lips, she knows that he won’t be trying to leave again.

She feels dizzy with euphoria as she drops her gaze to his lips in return, fixing it on them pointedly before taking a step to her left. He quirks an eyebrow at her, his features drawn with intrigue, and it emboldens her just as it always has to have his attention on her like this. She feels the seed of doubt in her stomach shrivel up and dissolve, and a demure smile finds its way onto her lips as she angles herself towards him before backing up slowly.

She stops when she feels her calves hit the tub, the cool porcelain providing a sobering jolt to her senses. She holds his gaze as she drops her hands to the hem of her— _his_ —shirt and lifts it, tugging it over her head and dropping it to the floor beside her feet in one swift motion, leaving her in just her panties.

Heat licks through her at the sight of his slack jaw and furrowed brows as his eyes take her up and down. She’d forgotten—well, perhaps _missed_ is more accurate _;_ she’s not sure she could ever forget—what it felt like to have him look at her in this way. Like she’s something to be revered rather than a loose end he’d failed to tie up—like he truly _sees_ her, and it makes every other detail and sensation fade away until all she can hear, see, or think about is _him._

She can feel the heat in his gaze against her back when she turns away from him and bends over the tub to fiddle with the shower handle. It takes her a moment to figure out which way to turn it, a blush erupting across her cheeks as she fumbles with it, but after a few seconds a steady stream of water sprays out from the shower head. The sound of it pelting against the bottom of the tub fills the room like white noise, although it’s not nearly loud enough to drown out the blood pounding in her ears. It takes every bit of her willpower to resist glancing at him over her shoulder as she straightens back up, slips her thumbs into the waistband of her panties, and tugs them down in one swift movement, wiggling her hips slightly so that the fabric drops to her feet. She steps out of them daintily and kicks them to the side before stepping towards the opposite end of the tub. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment as she takes a fortifying breath, pushing her inhibitions to the back of her mind before pulling back the grey curtain and stepping into the shower.

The hot water feels like a dream against her flushed skin. The thought of washing away the last twenty-four hours is more than appealing and for a brief moment, she loses herself in the soothing pressure of the shower’s spray and the haze of steam that clouds her senses.

The moment is shattered by the click of a door and the turn of a lock. The silence that follows is deafening.

She wonders fleetingly if he decided to leave, her heart sinking at the thought. She’s never been the best at making the first move or communicating her wants (it was never something that was easily received by Dean, even during the best parts of their marriage), but she thought she’d been fairly blatant in her— —her _proposition_.

Her doubts are swiftly chased away by the metallic hiss of a zipper and the rustle of fabric. She dips her head further into the stream of water in an effort to distract herself from her thoughts, only for them to scatter anyway when a warm, taut chest presses up against her back.

And right, she thinks, sucking in a sharp breath—of course he would undress like a ghost just the same as he moves like one.

She doesn’t turn to face him. Not right away, at least. She revels in the feeling of his skin against hers as he slides even closer, dissolving the last inch of space left between them. She can feel all the hard lines of him (including the one that’s currently pressed against the cleft of her ass, making her flush a vibrant shade of red) and she can’t withhold her sigh of contentment in response to having him so close again. A bit of tension is released from her muscles as she drops her head back onto his shoulder, the memory of their first time in the bar eminently vivid as he noses at the juncture where her shoulder meets her neck. His touch is feather-light as he moves a few strands of wet hair out of the way, his plush lips peppering soft kisses at the base of her neck before drifting towards her shoulder blade. The ones he lay there are lingering, purposeful, and she doesn’t attempt to suppress the shiver that rakes down her spine because _god,_ she’d missed his lips.

As he works his mouth below her shoulder blade, he places his right hand on her hip and cirlces his left arm around her waist. The fingers of his left hand splay over her ribcage as his lips drift back up to the nape of her neck, his kisses growing feverish when he reaches the knob of her spine. He latches onto the delicate patch of skin there, the bite of his teeth rough enough she’s certain he intends to leave a bruise. It elicits a gasp from her as her hands dart to his, covering the backs of them and lacing their fingers ever so slightly. The hand her belly drifts upward then, his fingers grazing the bottom of her breast, and she feels him adjust his grip on her slightly before he cups her in his palm.

Beth exhales a shaky breath as he takes her nipple between his thumb and pointer finger, rolling it gently while his other hand drifts up from her hip, tracing the curve of her waist with reverence. He mirrors his ministrations with his other hand until he’s gripping both of her breasts firmly, holding her tight to his chest as she leans her weight against him. She blinks her eyes open for the first time since he’d stepped in and nearly whimpers at the sight of his broad, tan hands engulfing her full breasts. Heat sparks in her chest before curling lower, pooling wet between her legs, and when she instinctively cants her hips back against him in search of friction, it’s like pouring gasoline on an open fire.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he drops his hands from her breasts to her waist and spins her around to face him. He’s careful to avoid her injured hip as he clutches at her, pressing in closer until his chest meets hers, and before she can even release the breath she’s been holding, he’s canting his head forwards and licking into her mouth, her lips parting for him with a startled gasp.

She immediately melts into the kiss, grasping at his shoulders for balance before lacing them together at the nape of his neck. He swallows the moan that escapes her unbidden when his tongue glides over her bottom lip, his fingers pressing insistently against the knobs of her spine until one hand falls away, dipping between her thighs instead.

The first brush of his calloused fingers against her overheated skin has her gasping into his mouth once more. He tightens his grip on her waist before he dips a finger into her folds, tracing her slit and spreading the wetness from her cunt to her clit. A groan tumbles from his lips when he feels how ready she is, his fingers working over her clit in lazy circles. Her hips buck up against his hand of their own volition when he keeps up the same maddening pace and pressure, and he’s moving before she’s even able to process it, unrelenting in his ministrations as he presses her up against the shower wall. 

She instinctively spreads her legs to accommodate him as he increases the pressure of his fingertips against the swollen bundle of nerves. She sinks back into the wall when his grip on her waist tightens, her hands drifting uselessly across the broad expanse of his shoulders as her head tips back against the wall. The tiles at her back are frigid, contrasting harshly with the steam that fills the room, and it somehow intensifies the bud of heat that’s blooming between her legs.

She can feel Rio’s gaze searing into her as he drags her closer to the edge, finding herself wholly overwhelmed by the depth of her desire, the affliction of their abstinence, and she tips her head forward when she blinks her eyes open again, attempting to pour every bit of it into her gaze as her breaths turn ragged. 

He’s watching her like a predator, his pupils blown so much they’re nearly swallowing the brown that surrounds them. She’s transfixed by it, unable to look away even as the pleasure in her begins to mount, her brows drawing together and her lips parting with a breathless moan. She’s so close now, her back arching against the tiles as she squirms beneath him, her cunt clenching around nothing as her body tenses like a coiled spring. He drinks in every minute reaction he draws out of her as if he’s committing her to memory, and the thought tears through her chest like a sharp blade, leaving her heart sore and bleeding.

And it’s sudden then, the way the urge hits her—the urge to watch, to see his hands on her, to bear witness to the way he’s making her feel. The instant she lowers her gaze between them, though, it’s like a bucket of cold water has been dumped on her, extinguishing the fire he’s ignited as everything in her freezes over.

She doesn’t know why it took her until now to see them.

They’re exactly where he said they’d be—the three dots of mottled skin that mark his chest like a cursed constellation.

_Lung, shoulder, spleen._

For a short bout of blissful ignorance, she was able to shut out reality, forgoing what she did him in the blind haze of her desire. She’s never seen them—the evidence of her unforgivable act, her betrayal—for herself. Evidence proving that even though he’s here now, he shouldn’t be. He should be dead because of her.

She raises a hand to her mouth, stifling the sob that threatens to spill from it as her eyes begin to water because _god_ _,_ how is he not sickened by this—by _her_ _—_ after what she did to him? How can she stand here and willingly accept his affection knowing she’s the last person on Earth who deserves it?

Her thoughts are broken up by the feeling of his hand gently grasping her own as he eases it away from her mouth. To her surprise, he doesn’t pull back or put any distance between them, and it takes her a second to build up the courage to meet his gaze, unsure of what she’ll find there. When she does, there’s that same storm from before brewing in them, but there’s also something that wasn’t there before—something akin to sympathy that stands out amidst the clouds. 

The shower stream is the only sound that Beth can hear besides her own uneven breaths as it beats against their skin and lands on the porcelain tub beneath them. Although he’s paused in his ministrations, he doesn’t pull away or loosen his grip—if anything, he inches impossibly closer, his hooded eyes taking her up and down before roaming back up again. She’s grateful for the water droplets that cover both their faces, disguising the tears that have begun to trail down her cheeks, but something tells her that Rio sees them anyway. Regardless, he doesn’t mention it, remaining stoically silent as he considers her. Not for the first time she wishes that his communication, both verbal and nonverbal, wasn’t so cryptic so she could get a read on him.

He seems to reach a conclusion in whatever assessment he’d been making because as soon as the moment passes, he cants his head towards hers and leans in slowly. She thinks he might kiss her before she realizes that his attention is fixed on her chest, and by the time her brain registers what’s happening, his lips are pressing against the skin at the tops of her breasts, planting soft kisses there before trailing more down the valley between them. 

Her breath hitches as he makes his way further down her torso. He takes his time when he reaches the thin white scar from her C-section, lavishing it an idling, reverent press of his lips before moving to the soft curve of her lower belly.

Beth is still trying to catch up with the abrupt mood shift when Rio suddenly slips out from under her touch and drops to one knee. Without any preamble, he plants a soothing kiss atop each of the three sutures in her hip.

Her heart just about capsizes.

The gentle press of his lips against her marred skin unlocks the trove of feelings that she’s been forced to bury for the past year. Doing so made it easier to be around him without exposing her hand, but it didn’t erase them. Rather, they were shoved into the corner of her mind she doesn’t dare delve into, festering in her heart like grave, untreated wounds, and it’s just as terrifying as it is exhilarating to feel them break through the surface.

She can’t take her eyes off of him as he presses tender kisses into the skin surrounding her stitches. She’s certain that he’s never handled her more gently—unlike every other man she’s encountered throughout her life, he’s never believed that she needed to be coddled—and it has her hot all over, her legs trembling at the naked affection on the his face as he soothes the source of her pain. She can hear every sentiment he doesn’t speak aloud in the press of his lips against her skin, the action delicate and benevolent in a way his words rarely ever are.

When he finally pulls away from her hip, his eyes flit to hers for a beat, something flickering in them that she’s unable to decipher. Her curiosity is immediately curbed by the feeling of his hand roaming over the soft flesh of her lower belly, her attention zeroing in on him in breathless anticipation. He glides his other hand from the back of her thigh to her knee, lifting and hooking it over his shoulder in one swift motion, and before her brain can even catch up with his actions, he’s nosing between her folds and licking into her cunt. 

She instantly slumps back against the tile of the shower, the air escaping her lungs in one harsh breath as her hands fumble for something to grasp. She ends up clutching at the back of his head with her right hand while scrambling fruitlessly at the wall with the other, unable to find purchase on the slick wall as he presses harder against her. His lips purse around her clit as he roughens his tongue against her, mouthing at her entrance briefly before he snakes his tongue back up to her clit, seeking out the exposed nerves with pinpoint precision. A ragged moan tears its way from her throat, echoing against the bathroom tiles and briefly drowning out the sound of the water pounding against the bottom of the tub. He groans in reply, the deep rumble vibrating against her and stealing her breath away as a fresh wave of desire floods her veins like hot magma.

Despite Beth’s resolve to commit the sight of his head burrowed between her legs to memory, Rio doesn’t make it easy for her to keep her eyes on him. He sucks hard at her clit, his cheeks hollowing with the force of it, and before long she’s screwing her eyes shut and tipping her head back, wilting beneath the simmer of heat that’s steadily blooming from her cunt to the base of her spine. His fingertips glide across the leg he’s got tossed over his shoulder as he palms at her breast with his other hand, squeezing firmly enough that her breath hitches. She gets so caught up in the feel of him rolling her tight nipple between his calloused fingers that she doesn’t realize his other hand has dipped between her legs until he’s already sliding two long fingers into her cunt, grazing his teeth against her clit as he does so.

A high-pitched keen slips from her lips at the sensation of being filled by something longer than her own finger for the first time in months. He begins to work his fingers in and out of her at a smooth yet rapid pace, a delicious pressure building in her lower belly as he tugs her closer and closer to the edge. She’s so pent up from before—teetering on the edge of her climax, only to be yanked back from it by the reminder of their dark past—that she knows she won’t last much longer.

Rio seems to sense this, if the way he curls his finger inside her and sucks harshly at her clit is any indication. Her hips move of their own volition as she squirms back against the tiles, the combined sensations of his fingers and mouth lifting her higher and higher as her entire body tenses, bracing, and when her breath escapes her lungs in a harsh, choked pant, his reaction is immediate.

In one swift motion, the hand on her breast drops between her legs, his fingers finding her clit and pulling up lightly on the hood so he can tongue at the swollen, exposed nerves. Beth lets out a sharp cry, smacking an open palm against the tiles, the overstimulating sensation causing her entire body to seize and twitch as he slides a third finger in alongside the other two and curls them roughly against her front walls.

Every muscle in her body seems to seize before the line of tension in her lower belly snaps in two. She goes careening off the edge as desperate, staggered moans spill from her lips, pleasure cresting and spreading through her like an inferno. A few tears leak from the corners of her eyes as she sags back against the wall, her body shaking slightly with the sheer force of her release, and it takes her a few beats to regain awareness of her surroundings. When she finally does, though, her gaze drops to Rio—on his knees and tucked between her legs, peppering feather-light kisses on her inner-thighs as he eases her through the aftershocks.

After a moment’s hesitation, she gently runs a hand through his closely-cropped hair and cups the nape of his neck, hoping to subtly redirect his attention to her gaze. He blinks his eyes open a moment later, gazing up at her with a scalding intensity that has her losing what little breath she’d been able to regained. She shivers gently when he slips his fingers out of her, clenching around nothing, the sliver of movement causing his lips to tug up fondly as he rises from his knees, looming over her once he straightens fully.

She feels her eyelids droop and her lashes flutter as she gazes up at him, feeling more than a little delirious, the aftershocks of pleasure still singing in her veins. The rigid line of his cock presses into her stomach when he closes the gap between them, causing her to suck in a harsh breath as a new wave of heat floods through her. And it really is unfair, she thinks, wrapping her fingers around him, feeling him heavy and hot in her grip—no matter how close she gets or how many times she gives in, she can never get enough of him.

His cock slides easily against her palm as she tightens her grip on him, running her thumb over the tip before squeezing at the base. She takes her time reacquainting herself with his body—exploring what has him groaning in the back of his throat and bucking into her hand, all the while marveling at the feeling of his smooth skin sliding against hers. Anticipation curls low in her belly at the idea of him finally filling her up again, and she watches her hand on him for a few moments before raising her gaze to his when a breathy sigh slips past his lips.

His brown eyes are almost inky black beneath the dim lighting of the bathroom, his pupils blown so wide they practically consume the dark brown around them. His breath escapes his parted lips in small puffs, making her all too aware of the renewed heat pooling between her legs, and she tries to redirect her focus into getting more of a reaction out of him, quickening her strokes and tightening her grip. She bites her lip triumphantly when it elicits a soft grunt from him, his elegant lashes fluttering rapidly before he concedes and allows his eyes to slip shut. His tongue darts out to wet his lips as his brows pinch together, and the exquisite sight of his head tipping back against the tiled wall is one she hopes will never slip from her memory. Motivated by his reaction and the escalation in his breathing, she dips her free hand between them to cup his balls in her palm, massaging them gently with her fingers, and she settles on a steady rhythm that she thinks might be veering him towards the edge before he abruptly drops his hands to hers. 

Confusion floods through her as she glances up at him, but any trace of an inquiry dissolves on her tongue when she meets his gaze, his eyes impossibly dark and brimming with something molten, something distinctly predatory. She can’t look away from them—she’s a moth drawn to his flame, finding him irresistible despite her uncertainty—and he takes full advantage of it, curling his fingers around her wrists, prying her hands from his body, and spinning her around so that her back is flush against his chest. Before she can even process what’s happening, he’s smoothing an insistent palm between her shoulder blades and pressing her body into the freezing shower tiles, the sensation causing her to jerk back a fraction before she feels the hard lines of his torso slotting into the dips and curves of her own . 

Rio’s warm breath tickles the nape of her neck as he noses into it, his hand coming up and gingerly nudging her wet hair aside so he can plant his lips along her feverish skin. Beth shivers involuntarily, knowing he can feel it by the way his lips curl against her skin, his arrogant smile searing into it like a brand. She cants her hips back against him in retaliation, satisfaction rolling through her when he groans into her shoulder and grinds his hips into her ass. So far, he’s been achingly gentle with her—whether it’s due to her injury or something else entirely, she can’t say for certain—and while she appreciates his degree of consideration, she finds herself craves the way he handled her the last time they were together.

When they were twisted up in the sheets of her marital bed, he wasn’t shy about exploring her—testing her body’s limits, gauging her reactions, guiding her touch on his body until her hesitation dissipated. More importantly, though, he didn’t act as if she’d shatter if he held too tight or pressed too hard. He made her feel confident and desirable in a way she had long since been defamiliarized with (perhaps had never even been truly acquainted with) and a great portion of that feeling came from the way he handled her—always knowing she could take it even before he made her confirm it.

Beth grinds her ass against Rio’s cock once more with a new surge of determination as she reaches back for him, cupping the back of his head and digging her nails in slightly until he’s practically growling against her skin. He nips at her shoulder as a reprisal, eliciting a sharp gasp, but it’s negligible compared to the breathless yelp that slips past her lips when he drops a hand to the back of her right knee, yanks her leg up, and guides it forward until her foot finds purchase on the edge of the tub, spreading her open for him.

She splays her free hand against the wall to steady herself, her cunt clenching in anticipation when he glides the head of his cock through her slick folds. She tilts her head back just enough to steal a glance at him, her breath catching in her throat when their eyes meet and he wordlessly arches a single brow at her, seeking confirmation that she wants this just the same as he does. She nods a bit more frantically than she intends to, unsure if she can handle one more minute without him inside her, and she swears his lips quirk up at the corner before he pushes into her.

She chokes on a moan as he buries himself to the hilt. He’s just as big as she remembers, stretching her out so well she can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She welcomes the burn as he slowly withdraws, one of his broad hands enveloping her waist while the other clutches the back of her knee, helping her maintain her balance. He splays his hand beneath her breasts, bracketing her against the wall with his body, and it’s when he thrusts back into her, quicker than before, that she realizes why he moved his hand—he's shielding her injured hip from colliding with the tiles. Although she's never doubted the extent of his consideration when it comes to her comfort, warmth still swells in her chest at the protective nature of it.

The hand lingering below her breast slides up to cup her as he ramps up the pace, his breath warming the back of her neck, and she moans wantonly when he rolls her nipple between his fingers, the juxtaposition of the freezing tiles and his scalding touch quickly working her mind into a frenzy. Still, even the drastic clash of sensations isn’t enough to draw her attention away from the feel of him inside her. She can’t focus on anything except the way he fills her up so perfectly, his cock brushing up against her front wall with each thrust. She blindly flails a hand back for him as he tightens his hold on her, clutching onto his forearm as he ramps up the pace. He gives her no choice but to ride it out and take what he’s giving her, and she clenches around him as a high-pitched whimper escapes her. He groans softly at the back of her neck in reply, his full lips peppering kisses between her shoulder blades as he fucks up into her, and she digs her nails into his forearm in response, canting her hips back in an effort to meet him with each thrust.

Just as she feels the pleasure mounting into a peak and the thread of tension in her lower belly coiling tighter, Rio abruptly pulls out of her and peels away from her own, taking the intoxicating heat of his body with him. Before Beth has the chance to protest, he drops both of his hands to her waist and spins her so that she's facing him.

Her lips part wordlessly, sentiments of objection and inquisition rising on her tongue before she catches the glint of heat in his dark gaze, the sight of it giving her just enough pause for him to take advantage of. In one fluid motion, he drops his hand to her right leg, hooks it around his waist, and pushes back into her.

The abruptness of it has Beth crying out, dropping her head back against the tiles as she clenches, _hard._ Rio dips his head forwards, bringing his lips to hers and swallowing the sound as he rocks his hips against hers, burying his cock deeper than before with the new angle he's created. Without thinking much of it, she splays a hand over his chest and digs her nails into his skin with the intention of making him just as overwhelmed as she is. 

She realizes her mistake a beat too late, though, and his reaction is instant. 

Before she can so much as blink, he’s grabbing her wrist and pinning it against the tiles above her head. It startles a gasp out of her, but it has more to do with how wet it makes her rather than the action itself. Her cunt clenches around his cock as he grabs ahold of her other hand, pinning both of her wrists to the wall with one hand, and she just barely catches the smug curl to his lips before he’s lowering his head to her chest and sucking a bruise into the delicate skin above her collarbone.

He adds a bit more pressure to her wrists as he plunges back into her, his cock driving so deep she can’t help but cry out into his shoulder. He pulls away from her chest then, releasing her skin with a _pop_ , and his dark eyes seek out her own as her head lolls back. The mixture of lust and affection in his gaze is intoxicating, and for a fleeting moment she wonders if there'll ever come a time when she'll stop wanting him.

“ _Shit,_ Elizabeth,” Rio chokes out, tipping his head forwards so that his forehead rests against her own. Beth’s hips jerk forwards, meeting his next thrust as she moans lowly, their lips no more than a hair’s breadth apart as they pant into each other’s mouths. The tight coil of tension in her belly only tightens when his lower lip brushes against her own as he rasps, “So fuckin’ good. Can’t get enough of you.”

Beth cants her head just enough to close the space between them, her lips colliding with his in a feverish kiss, and she swears she feels it through her entire body when he groans into it, taking her bottom lip between his teeth and biting down as she clenches around him. Her fingers flex uselessly above her, desperate to touch him and clutch at him as he works her closer and closer to her peak. He’s unrelenting though, bearing more of his weight against her wrists as he hikes her leg higher around his hip.

He pounds into her breathlessly until the thread of heat in her belly is pulled taut like a bowstring, her kisses sloppy and desperate as she writhes beneath him. He tightens his grip on her knee until she’s certain there it’ll be decorated with bruises come morning. The thought fuels the inferno in her lower belly as heat licks up her spine and wraps around her torso, and by the time he releases her wrists to thumb roughly at her clit, she can feel the waves of her release beginning to crest.

“That’s it, mama. C’mon, come for me,” Rio coaxes, nudging her nose with his own.

Beth arches off of the wall as her entire body stiffens, her eyes screwing shut and her mouth opening with a silent cry before the tidal wave of pleasure comes crashing down on her. Her breath catches in her throat before a throaty whine spills from her parted lips, her heartbeat thundering in her ears as she unravels. It drowns out the sound of Rio’s pants and the water beating against the porcelain and the gurgle of the drain, and then his lips are on hers—swollen and hot and _perfect,_ and she bites down on his plush bottom lip as his thrusts lose their rhythm.

Now that she has full use of her hands, Beth clings to him as he chases his own release, rubbing her thumb in soothing motions across the skin of his neck. Rio breaks their kiss to tip his forehead against hers again, chewing at his lip as though he’s trying to stifle the groan that rumbles from his throat. She clenches around him, the aftershocks from her release still rolling through her body, and the pressure is enough to push him over the edge.

He buries himself to the hilt before his lithe form goes rigid against her. She feels him spill into her and can’t help but whimper at the thought of him filling her up, leaving his cum to leak out of her and drip down her thighs. 

It takes a few moments for him to recover enough to open his eyes again. When he does, he makes no effort to separate himself from her. He seems content to simply take her in, his chest heaving against her own, and for a brief, blissful minute, they just sort of _exist—_ reveling in each other’s nearness and the euphoria of having each other like this again. 

When those dark orbs of his are trained on her again, she feels a sinking sensation in her stomach, realizing that the reality of what they’ve just done is about to come crashing down on them, and she braces for the moment when the warmth in his eyes will freeze over—when the affection will turn to steel and he’ll push her away, cursing himself for his stupidity and leaving her to curse herself for her own.

Only that’s not what happens.

When he opens his eyes, his expression is predictably indecipherable. Seconds pass in agony as he studies her, his gaze scanning over her features, searching for something that she hasn’t offered verbally. She holds her breath, her hand loosening its grip on his bicep slightly as every other muscle in her body tenses, her heart beating erratically in her chest. 

Then he smiles.

It’s instant, the way it lights her up—the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkle with mirth, and that’s all it takes for a genuine grin to unfurl along her own lips. His top row of perfect white teeth shine beneath the dull lighting of the bathroom, and the curve of his lips are endearingly lopsided in a way that makes her want to kiss them until she’s blue in the face.

As Beth’s senses gradually return to her, she registers the hot water pelting against her skin, the softening of his cock inside her, her skin throbbing where it’s been torn open at her hip, and her right leg tingling as it goes numb, but none of it is enough to draw her attention away from the unbridled affection in Rio’s expression as he stares down at her, silent and unwavering.

And she can’t quite explain how she knows it, but suddenly she’s certain—more certain than she’s ever been about anything when it comes to him—that this isn’t the beginning of another goodbye; it’s the end of a hello.

Eventually, they come back to themselves, the stream of water now lukewarm as he carefully lowers her leg from his hip until she’s standing evenly on both feet. The feel of his cum leaking out of her is enough to spur her into motion, her fingers gingerly releasing his bicep as she steps away from him and moves beneath the shower head. 

His dark eyes follow her, making her feel like prey beneath his unwavering attention. She bends at the waist towards the shower handle to make the water hotter and isn’t the least bit surprised when he reaches out for her. The first brush of his fingers against the torn skin of her hip is so light, she briefly wonders if she imagined it, but before long he’s sliding both hands upwards and settling them at the dip in her waist, pulling her back gently until her back meets his chest.

Slowly, she turns to face him, taking care not to lose her footing on the slippery surface of the tub. When she meets his fervent gaze, he ropes his arms around her back, tethering her to him, and she instinctively settles her hands along his broad shoulders, reveling in the sensation of the tightly corded muscle shifting beneath her touch as he breathes in and out softly.

He doesn’t say anything for a while—allows the silence to stretch on as she takes in the sharp angles and dulcet curves of his features, lingering on his swollen lips when they part delicately before dancing over the bird of prey on his neck. She glides a hand over his chest, collarbone, and neck until her fingers are brushing against the inked lines, her thumb dipping beneath his jawline to trace the span of the bird’s wing. The ink ripples as he swallows heavily, his throat bobbing beneath her touch, and the urge to lean forward and replace her fingers with her lips is so overwhelming that she doesn’t register the sound of his voice until his grip on her waist tightens a fraction, stealing back her attention.

“Elizabeth,” He murmurs, his voice low and gravelly in that way that he must know does things to her, and her eyes dart to his. A part of her melts beneath the warmth she finds in them, and she finds herself overwhelmed in the best possible way by the cluster of emotions that unfurls in her chest as his gaze holds her own steadily. She searches his face expectantly as she presses her thumb a bit firmer against the side of his neck, signaling for him to continue.

He appears to collect his thoughts for a moment, shaking his head faintly and releasing a deep breath through his nose before he tells her, “Don’t ever pull somethin’ like that again.”

Instantly, she reels back, startled by his admonishing tone and the unprecedented weight of his words, but his grip on her waist tightens before she has the chance to pull away from him. Her thoughts ricochet off of one another as she tries to decipher what he’s talking about, what it’s supposed to _mean_ , and she feels her inhibitions clawing at her throat, the urge to run pulsing through her body like an alarm, because how could she be so _stupid——_

She risks a glance up at his expression, ready to gauge the degree of his anger, only to do a double take when she finds him gazing down at her in confusion.

Then it hits her—he’s not talking about _that_. He’s talking about the meeting—how she got herself shot for protecting him.

The tension leaves her body just as quickly as it had gathered and she instantly relaxes against him again, allowing herself to sink into his hold. She slides her hand back down from his neck to his chest, her gaze tracking it as she pointedly avoids meeting his eyes.

She doesn’t truly register the path that her hand is roaming along until she reaches the three puckered scars that dapple his golden skin, the evidence of her cruelty and their violent past staring mercilessly back at her. And sure, she thinks—her hands may be clean now, but all she can see is his blood on them, her pale skin stark against his in a way that makes her feel like she doesn’t deserve to be touching him.

Distantly, Beth registers that her breathing is coming in a bit faster, that Rio is trying to get her to meet his gaze, but she just— —she can’t help herself. Once the idea enters her mind, it’s all she can do to pray that he doesn’t pull away as she dips her head and gently presses her lips to the scar near his sternum.

_Lung._

He sucks in a sharp breath, the sound bouncing off of the porcelain tub as he flexes his fingers, his grip on Beth’s waist tightening almost imperceptibly. Her heart flutters when she feels the rapid the beat of his own against her lips. 

She pulls away after a lengthy beat of silence, her gaze lingering on the scar for a moment as she re-gathers her courage. She’s surprised to find that a fraction of her guilt, however infinitesimal, seems to be dissolving, the pain from it replaced by an all-encompassing warmth as her heart beats in unison with his own.

_Alive,_ it chants. He’s here—with her, against her, a part of her—and he’s _alive._

It feels as though her sternum has been cracked wide open by the realization, her deepest hopes and affections spilling out of her like blinding rays of light, and when she dips her head to press her lips to the lowest scar on his abdomen, she pays no attention to the tears trickling down her cheeks, the twin streams blending in with the droplets left by the shower head.

_Spleen._

His abdomen trembles beneath her lips as a sigh escapes him. When she pulls away this time, she can’t bring herself to look up at him—can’t bear the thought of what she’ll find in his expression—so she keeps her gaze on his chest as she swallows against the lump in her throat, choking back the sob that threatens to spill from her parted lips.

Tentatively, her hands glide over his torso and settle on his hips, his heated skin even softer than she remembers. She recalls how pleasantly surprised she’d been when she finally got her hands on him that day in her bedroom; remembers regretting that she didn’t take the chance to explore and appreciate all of him until it was too late.

Now she finds herself trembling as she traces a finger over the ridge of the scar, overwhelmed with relief as she realizes that it isn’t too late. That tonight, in spite of everything, he chose her. That for once, he’s presented her with a beginning rather than an end.

For once, she’s ready to meet him halfway.

She can feels his eyes on her as she rises back to her full height, gliding her hands along his sides as she goes. He’s so warm, so steady—so _perfect,_ she thinks as she tilts her head to the left and presses a soft kiss to the last patch of imperfect skin.

_Shoulder._

She doesn’t think any amount of imperfections could truly mar him. She’s believed it ever since that night he came back to her, brimming with bloodlust and vengeance, and all she could think about was how devastatingly beautiful he was.

Her lips linger on his shoulder as he breathes deeply against her. She takes her time in mapping out this new version of him in her head, committing the texture of his blighted skin to memory in case it’s the last time she’s able to feel it.

(She hopes to god it isn’t.)

When Beth pulls away, her eyes drifting hesitantly to Rio’s, and her heart just about stalls in her chest as she finally takes him in because _god—_ it’s like she’s looking into a mirror. 

Everything she feels for him—every ounce of affection, every flash of heat, every conflicted flicker of anguish—is reflected in his enraptured gaze.

All of it is there for her.

Before she can second-guess herself, she splays her hand over his chest, stretching her fingers until every scar is partially covered. She wishes more than anything that she could somehow absorb his pain and bear the weight of it, if only for tonight—she owes him that much.

(She owes him so much more.)

For a few agonizing seconds, all he does is stare at her. His lips part as soft breaths escape them and his eyebrows are drawn slightly, a small crease forming in the space between them. She wants to smooth her thumb over it and unravel the tension there, but she doesn’t. Instead, she keeps one hand on his chest and raises the other to rest on his shoulder, willing her heart to be steady as she waits.

Several suffocating beats of silence pass between them before his grip on her waist loosens and his right hand drifts downward. His touch is scorching, setting fire to every inch of skin in its path and stealing her breath from her lungs as it stops at her hip. Then, with the lightest amount of pressure possible, he settles his hand over her wound, his thumb just barely brushing against her stitches, and the warmth in her chest blooms until there’s no space left for it to fill.

In the back of her mind, a nagging voice reminds her that this isn’t something they do. They don’t share these kinds of tender moments or wear their hearts on their sleeves. It’s too dangerous—giving one the ability to break the other after having proven countless times that neither of them can be trusted not to abuse it.

And yet— —

And yet maybe it could be, Beth thinks, sighing deeply into his chest as Rio carefully curls his fingers around her hip, tipping his head forwards until his forehead is resting against her own. Sure, it might take some getting used to, but it’s not like it would be a first for them to break down the walls between them despite their best judgement. It’s not like he hasn’t already carved out a place for himself in her heart—not like she could ever truly resent him for it. Given that she’d carved out three holes in his chest, she’s willing to call it even.

And as he answers her sigh with one of his own—his chest rising and falling beneath her hand, the beat of his heart strong and pacifying—she thinks he might be willing to, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’d like to start off by letting you all know how deeply sorry i am for how long it took me to get this up. i made the fatal mistake of publishing an unfinished story right before classes started up again and i literally could not find an hour to spare on writing for months. i also pulled the masochistic move of signing up for two writing classes at the same time throughout the entire semester, which resulted in more writer's burnout than i've ever experienced.  
> regardless, the outpouring of love i’ve received from you all on this story is genuinely mind-blowing. i’ve gotten nothing but encouragement and reassurance in both my comments and on tumblr during my hiatus, and i can’t express how grateful i am for it. it makes my heart so full to know that my writing is worth the wait. :)  
> until next time friends!

**Author's Note:**

> extra note: i know it’s super controversial that rio would ever give beth her stuff back, especially since he didn’t in canon, but i was really soft for the idea of him leaving a note and them having a bit of a truce. plus, the next chapter will have a LOT more feelings and i needed to set it up so that they’d be actually willing to communicate.  
> send me prompts, suggestions, theories, or just a hello @elise-jupiterstyle on tumblr!


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